You think we'll get a new class again? Do we need one?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Dramatime, Mar 30, 2015.

  1. Brumski Augur

    What about dual or trio classing? (A la D&D?). Dual specs like wow has (except make each class have to be leveled separately). Either could add an interesting dimension.
  2. Dre. Altoholic

    Pure utility/support class, "the perfect bot".

    Basically something like an SK that can't tank, but has all the raid utility that SK's have been asking for.

    Or just use that dev time to give SK's raid utility.
  3. Ravengloome Augur


    And cancellation of mana preservation.

    And death touches if mana recovery tools are used.
    roguerunner and Iila like this.
  4. Numiko Augur

    We need Ninja's and Pirates!
  5. Bigstomp Augur

    And waves of 54 adds that look like everyones clone in the raid, everyone has to find their clone and hail it 72 times.
    moogs, Lisandra, Ferry-Tunare and 2 others like this.
  6. Brohg Augur

    The funny thing about silences, reflects & savage drains is that when casters are hit by them, they won't, like, fall-behind-parsing like melee do. Casters go to actual 0. Wizards sustain and burn 6kdps with their AA buttons, Mages & druids 1k, everyone else will just watch their pets fight.

    Anti-melee effects make melee not as good. Anti-caster effects makes casters into a blank spot in the raid.

    I don't have a clever solution to that dynamic, I just object to treating the two conditions as equivalent.
    Lisandra and Iila like this.
  7. Iila Augur

    EQ has a strong history of over reacting to anything. The lesson learned won't be "Create a balance between raid mechanics that doesn't heavily punish some classes" it will be "F*** CASTERS"

    And 3 people in the raid get DT'd if you hail it more than 72 times.
    Bigstomp likes this.
  8. Lisandra Augur

    No, no and no! That'd make casters useless for half or more of that raid as they try to recover mana. You've seen how useless a caster is after they die and until they can get back enough mana to function, imagine that for the entire raid alternating around all the casters. Wave bye bye to the DPS.

    I haven't had the good fortune to be involved in any TDS raids so if there is something like this going on with melee I am unaware of it and not in favor of it.
  9. Ravengloome Augur


    And then you have to jump through a window forwards then backwards and /dance.
    Lisandra and Bigstomp like this.
  10. Kaenneth [You require Gold access to view this title]

    We won't ever see new classes or true new races in EQ; right now we have 16 of each, so an items list of usable race/class combinations can be represented by a single 32 bit number.

    A lot of 'usable by' type lists are probably stored as bit fields in 16 and 32 bit numbers in large, complex, overlapping structures.

    By overlapping, think of how you can't have an individual item that both stacks; and has a number of charges; or has Haste, and a Weight Reduction (Quivers, iirc show their bow haste in their weight reduction http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=6186) Because the same spot in the data is used to hold both types of data, depending on the supra-type of the item.

    Because of the multiple uses for data fields, it's a LOT of risk and work to extend an old field, because it offsets every piece of data after it.

    Best we can hope for is something like 'heritages' on Drakkin. instead of green/blue/red/whatever; you could have 'coldain' dwaves; functionally identical to kaladim dwarves, but with a different skin color, and some added flags to enable/disable particular quests/faction modifiers.
  11. Mardy Augur


    But they are completely separate classes, means if you want to play differently, you would need to level up a completely different character, gear up a completely different character, and spend the tedious time AA'ing out the characters. Specialization choices would branch for someone playing an existing character, such as a warrior, without making the player logoff their beloved character to play another.

    Don't you hate having to play a class you don't want to play? Or be made to logon a class that really isn't your main just to fill a role. That's kind of how EQ is designed, and has been since the beginning. Other MMO's saw these issues and solved them by allowing talent/specialization choices. Where EQ can tweak differently would be to choose how often they would allow players to swap talents/specializations, and whether they want to make it into a money sink or not.

    Choices is a good thing. AA's initially was about choices, but it turned out to be a colossal never-ending grind. It'd be one thing if people had to choose, but with AA's you know you're going to eventually get them all so there's really no choices there. It's just a matter of grinding them out. Somewhere along the way, I think EQ devs lost their way and turned AA's from what was once a very unique and revolutionary feature, into another standardized exp grind. Lost opportunities there, and here we are at the end of the AA road all because of the choices EQ devs made along the way.
    Zujilli likes this.
  12. Aghinem Augur

    I am not sure if we will ever see a new class, or for that matter - even question if one is needed. To be frank, if a new class is ever introduced - it would need to be something that is not a hybrid of two or three existing classes. It would need to be something fresh & new, something that stands out from the others.
  13. Iila Augur

    It means that instead of being unable to design for the existing 16 classes, they'd be even more unable to design for the 16*2 or 16*2*2 specialization options.

    If a dps-war does damage as well as a zerker, why play a zerker? If a tank-ranger tanks like a warrior, why play a warrior? Raids will still want focused classes, if tank-war is the best at doing what a warrior is needed for, any other choice is wrong. EQ already had problems with these issues, doubling, tripling or quadrupling the number of effective classes would only make it worse.

    Making specialization choices permanent is a terrible trap. Gamers will figure out the best way to do things and share that info, anyone who went another way ends up with a crappy character because someone thought a false choice was better than none.
    Lisandra and Bigstomp like this.
  14. Kellaer Augur

    It is already a nightmare to balance the current classes in the game. Some classes are absurdly powerful right now (warriors, wizards, and of course, as always, necromancers) while others are just plain useless in raids like rangers and shadowknights. I don't think adding a new class is ever going to happen.
  15. Mardy Augur


    You would only ask those questions if you haven't really explored other MMO's and seen how they've done it. Is it really a bad thing if more tanks become viable to raiding than just warriors? Rather than pigeonhole warriors into one niche of "the one and only preferred raid tank but suck at group game", wouldn't it be better that all 3 tank classes (warriors, paladins, and sk's) have a spec that can raid tank AND group tank on par of each other?

    WoW does this just fine. You can be a warrior, a druid bear, a monk, a paladin, or a dk, it doesn't matter, they all have a spec that can raid tank & group tank in the game. While they also have alternate specs that allow them to dps, while some, like paladin & druid, also have a spec that allow them to heal.

    As for how would you differentiate a dps warrior spec vs a pure dps class like berserker? It's easy really, pure dps classes should edge others, but in exchange for something. Using this purely as an example, arms warriors in WoW excel in cleave damage. They aren't as high on dps chart when it comes to single target encounters. But they excel in cleave. So if you take a rogue or berserker, they should always out-dps a warrior when it comes to single target damage. But you could give dps warriors the perk of cleave damage, like WoW has done, to give them a perk that make them still wanted.

    As for making specialization choices for a dps class, such as rogues, there could be differences in higher single target dps vs mobility. Mobility would of course be useful in encounters that move a lot or have a lot of cc involved.

    Just tossing out ideas here. I'm not saying this is the way for EQ, I'm not saying it's even doable. I know EQ has done it one way and one way only since the beginning. I know warriors have always been the one raid preferred tank, while paladins & sk's are group preferred tanks. But at least I'm trying to think of something to do because we all know AA's have met the end of the road. Something has to be done unless people are really happy to just let devs do the lazy thing of adding +10 here and there in AA's for people to grind every year.

    Having played other MMO's I just find talent choices & spec choices a lot more exciting than the ever-lasting grind of AA's where I really don't have choices because I know I'll just get them all anyway eventually. AA's started out as a choice thing in the beginning because exp was hard to come by, and people had to pick what AA's they want to prioritize in. As time went by AA's became a lazy way for devs to pretend they're adding content & choices when it's just more exp grind. It also became a way for devs to water down classes by giving every class something from other classes. AA's have gotten us to this point, deep underground. Just trying to find a way to dig EQ out of this grave that's all.
  16. Ultrazen Augur

    The ability to dual class is what I'd love to see that will never happen lol.

    Monk/druid
    Wiz/warrior (this would actually be a good basis for a new class, spellblade)
    Bard/Warrior Bard to 63, the rest warrior...so many combos that would be fun to explore.

    Would be fun to be able to pick when you stop training in one class, and start in the other. Given how EQ works, you'd probably only be able to make gimped characters, but it would be fun to play with.
    Zujilli likes this.
  17. Schadenfreude Augur

    The amount of work that would be required to add a new class at this point in the game's lifespan makes my head spin.
  18. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    The Advaned loot system was originally for the TDS expansion release.

    And I would rather seem the devs concentrated on content over a new class/race
  19. MrGPAC Augur

    If they were to make a new class, I think the obvious choice is to look where classes are lacking currently. We only have 2 classes that are primary CC'ers: Chanters and Bards, and we only have 3 classes that are primary healers: Druids, Clerics, Shamans. I'd love to see a healer CC class if they were to add one. Not that we need to or should add one...but if we were to that would be my choice.

    As far as balancing goes...there are 4 types of dps:

    Single Target Sustained DPS
    Single Target Burst DPS
    AoE Sustained DPS
    AoE Burst DPS

    For whatever reason, classes are more or less tuned around everyone wanting to max out their single target burn dps...There is no reason why each type of dps class shouldn't have a distinct advantage in one of these area's over the others and that should be acceptable. For instance you could use this model (obviously doesn't include all classes and is just hypothetical):

    Melee:
    Rogues king of burst single target DPS.
    Monks king of sustained single target DPS.
    Zerkers king of AoE Burst DPS.
    Rangers king of sustained AoE DPS.

    Casters:
    Necros king of sustained single target DPS.
    Mages king of burst single target DPS.
    Wizards king of AoE burst DPS.
    Chanters king of AoE sustained DPS.

    Further raids should be programmed around this type of utility where part of the event is best for aoe dps, another single target. One event could be about surviving a really long time where sustained dps takes effect, where another is get it down in X time or bad stuff happens where Burst DPS takes effect.

    Same should go for tanking. Warriors king of single target tanking, SKs king of aoe tanking...more or less already the case though aoe tanking isn't very used currently. Paladins could be an interesting half way point between the two able to step in for either, OR they could be the "sustained" version of tanking. Warriors king of tanking with defensives up, out tanking what a paladin can do, but a paladin is better than a warrior whose defensives have faded.

    ~MrGPAC
  20. Zanarnar Augur

    About the only thing I can think of thats missing is a Disciple style class from Vanguard. (Think a monk who has a lot of ae/group heals triggered by their meele attacks) They could even have secondary effects to boost end and mana regen; but the real goal would be to help with group and ae healing during raid events.

    Right now every healer in EQ is caster based (bard songs debatable? but also not much more then regen so...) why not introduce a meele based healer ;)