Well, I don't know how many people I can speak for, but as for myself - I enjoy playing the game, even though SOE seems to often not be a company who has 8+ years of experience with MMORPG's. If any one class was so broken for the type of content I was trying to experience, I would sadly just switch to a different class, and try to have fun with that class. Then, if they screwed up that class, I would probably pick another class to level and play. If I ever hit a point where I thought I could have more fun elsewhere for my 15 bucks a month, I'd go there. Or if I ever felt like I wasn't getting a good enough entertainment value, based on some in-game factors, I'd quit. Really, though, I don't see a whole lot of people leaving the game for just this. Nor would I see SOE becoming too concerned if a certain percentage (anything less than 20%) of the playerbase did leave because of issues like this. I left once already - quit on principle when SOE launched Station Exchange - I found other ways to amuse myself, and then got REALLY excited over Vanguard, and followed it. To me, it was the "great white hope" of a non-SOE MMORPG. Needless to say, I was crushed when Brad got back into bed with SOE, but nevertheless, I bought and built a whole new system to play VG on. Then, after my first 30 days, when it wouldn't run without the CTD's, I refused to subscribe. Eventually, I came back to EQ2 to play with RL friends. I know SOE doesn't care about any one of us as an indivudual customer, nor about the state of the game as a whole integrated product. The devs probably do what they're told by the people responsible for the financial aspect. But regardless of all of that, the final product is pleasing enough to me to kill time. So I pay and play.
I personally do not see myself stopping the game soon cause I have made to many good friends. Every class that I play has issues. But I would say the zerker and bruiser are the two I like most. I haven't played my zerker hard since August of last year. I just got discussed with my lack of snap aggro tools. Bruiser was very fun pre ROK but a few months after ROK I found that he really didn't get any great equipment like the other classes and his dps didn't increase as well as other classes. My zerker dps seemed to have increased better than my bruiser. Anyways the day I come to the forums and see that there hasn't been a single post on any zerker, bruiser, sk, or any class section of the forums for about 30days is the day I know that the camels back just broke. I understand that many are disgusted. I enjoy tanking and haven't really tanked anything in almost a year with my zerker. He was such a blast too and I ate it all up. However I just got very disappointed with not being able to snap that aggro back with my zerker when the dps got to crazy. Honestly when tumble weeds and dust start blowing accross the forums streets is when it will be known that a huge failure occured.
problem you have to realize is with no tanks playing the game, what will you have? people will be begging brigs/swashies to tank(not that they can't but not all know how). the zerk board is pretty much a ghost town as it is, i don't really see a bunch of complaints in a handful of threads a great example of a happy and managing class, same goes for the SK and bruiser forums.
jaguarjp wrote: Um... ok.... I started in Beta 3 as a junior admin with EQII.com to get access that that stage. I played until mid DoF at which time I quit because I was a troub and troubs sucked and when my twin brother died I just didn't have the energy to be dealing with a game that broken and considering 3 brothers already quit by then I didn't really have incentive to stay. a year passed and one of my buddies came into the game and asked me to come back and play with some of our old guildmated from EQ1 in EQ2... he promptly got bored and quit... but not before I sucked 2 of my brothers in the game... then one of the guys from my first EQ2 guild I ran came back to be with me... later another brother showed up. 2 of those brothers have since quit and my buddy from the other guild from EQ2 that rentered the game to be with me. I will now also point at my sig list... I have tried all the other classes... taken 5 classes to max level.. 3 of them with mythicals... 1 with fabled epic and one most of the way done with fabled epic. trust me.... there are plenty of reasons for players to quit EQ2... especially berserker... although SK, Monks, Troubadours, and Inquisitors have just as much reason to leave. The balance is non existent at this point... this is one of the reason SOE keeps putting out combo packs with all the expansions and free play time etc for new gamers or returning players... they need fresh victims to fill the paces of the people leaving... but the issue is that's impossible to get because there are too many NEW games out now or coming out now with way flashier graphics... the goal at this point should be new gamers 2nd.. existing customers first and what we are demanding is balance. I don't want to run out and abandon 5 lvl 80 toons... that's why I am still here... but everyone knows as soon as my last remaining brother quits... I will have no incentive to stay... 5 lvl 80 toons and the prospect of playing this game in a high end guild is worth very little to me in comparison to having the people I care about in this game stay. But SOE doesn't want the gamers to stay... they don't care so much what I want or what my brother wants... what they care about is new subscribers. The epic changes for berserkers in GU #47 http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=422082 are frankly less than awe inspiring.... we wanted tanking power... I don't see that listed... we wanted positional aggro... I don't see that listed... we wanted single target DPS... eh.. we got a little because +crit is better than + double at the end game right now... but the point is no one is listening. There are 2 people in my guidl at the top of just about every parse... they are Assassins. They are high desired in MT and OT groups as well as DPS group... they are sought after in instance groups etc... they are probably the best class to be in the game if you can get your hands on a healer and a tank of some sort. It comes to me as no surprise that assassins do so well in every situation... Aeralik is an assassin in the game. What I don't see is a zerker balancing the classes... if a zerker was balancing the classes we would be the best.... I have been saying it since release... the only way to get balance is to have someone from each class represented during the balance decisions... KNOWLEDGEABLE people. Not just lvl 80... not just 80 in a raid guild... people who know all the classes to some extent and how they all work together that happen to prefer one class. In Vanguard... for which I run one of the largest websites for but no longer play (I'm Claire Mouse on vgbards.com with 6000+ registered members)... they elected class leaders... those people had a direct line to the devs... when things got tough we made a sub forum for the devs and the class leader on our forums and invited like 3 other key players to has it out... they talked and fixed many problems. THIS WAS AFTER SOE BOUGHT VG FROM SIGIL... why do we not have this? So anyway I know what you are trying to say... but I am saying I HAVE quit... I know A LOT of people who QUIT... and I have played A LOT of other classes. I am here in a guild and raiding hardcore for social reasons ONLY... and soon that will be over... and then what? I quit... that's what... I am sure I am not alone on these feelings... probably alot of people have 2 gamers left they care enough about to stay in EQ2... and it's almost like a pact... when one leaves the other leaves... SOE has to wake up and realize that abandoning one class gets rid of that class eventually.. and the people that played it.. and thier friends that only clung to the game to be with them... ignoring zerkers, troubs, SK, etc hurts them financially. they need to get help balancing the game before it's too late. Whomever plans on helping balance... needs to read more about classes besides assassins than Aeralik does. Sorry if it hurts your feelings Aeralik but you really need to do a better job at listening... don't know why I am saying sorry because you aren't reading this anyway.... Done this several times before and you have yet to once ever prove me wrong that you are ignoring our threads. Where I work at... people get canned for that kind of work ethic.
probably not necessarily his fault, balancing 24 classes all by yourself i can't imagine is an easy job. i view it like him working at McDonalds, all by himself, during lunch rush, with the line getting longer and people screaming at him for service... eventually you tell people to wait or leave, so people leave. i view this as sony's neglect of customer service and eventually the game will be driven into the dirt for it. they could save it by hiring more employees to serve the crowd instead of downsizing and getting themselves backed up with work and losing revenues because of it but it's easy to blame the economy and point the finger in another direction instead of working to dig yourself out of the hole. imagine bug free lively game updates once a month with more than a couple of hours worth of content, imagine devs interacting with the community and getting things worked out, imagine new players coming in and the player base beginning to thrive again. tossing out a month free to ex-subscribers only for them to leave once that free trial is up is hardly a fix and i wish they could see that. i own and run a business by myself, i know what it's like to have customers backed up and i know what it's like to not have any customers for weeks at a time, it's how you deal with each of those situations that will make or break you. if you have 10 customers in line waiting for service and you tell the ones towards the back to screw off and that you may get to them eventually, you just lost those customers for life. MMOs are hardly a monopoly, you can't expect people to wait forever. the zerk class has been stale for a while now, other classes got new toys to play with and some are much nicer than others but it's impossible to always make everyone happy. i just had higher hopes than that my toy would be more useful in pickup heroic groups than for actual raiding that i acquired it through.
Lyger@Mistmoore wrote: I think you shouldn't make excuses for him. Of course it is not easy to balance 24 classes, but you have to be blind not to see in 1 year that tank classes were no longer balanced after EoF. And then putting on top of this the epic weapons and even after openly acknowledging that balance is completely broken daring to make these laughable changes with GU47 to the Epics. Eg simply changing the 5 shield effectiveness to 5 shield block and increase the 5 % mitigation to 10 % would allready help and wouldn't be gamebraking, because better effects on the Guardian or Paladin Epic are obviously ok. But just saying "It's broken, better luck next time somewhere in the Future" and making no attempt to fix it even when working on the problem is unexcusable.
Lyger: I respect you alot. I have seen you on these boards and EQ2 flames and i can tell your a good player that knows his stuff, but please dont make excuses for Aeralik. Im sorry to have to say this but its a proven fact that this dev is not ethical. I dont need to get into some things from the past. He plays the number one dps class in the game, period. The casters are having a very hard time with resists on raids. The summoners have 40% of there dps coming from there pets. The spell crit and spell damage items dont effect there pets, so when they get say +5 spell crit they aregetting roughly 40% less damage from that items than anyone else. Zerkers cant hit a thing in def stance. OH and i play a ranger too as my new main. Dont need to get into the ranger itemization problems in this game. Ask the Sk's how there doing. Im not into attacking devs on the forums but i cant stand by and watch people defend them either. Haveing 24 classes to balance dosent keep him from keeping assassins at the top of the parses does it? And if im wrong in some way about this dev then im sorry. But i see no excuse in the fact that some classes have been being ignored for such a very long time now.
Kage848 wrote: Kage.. I very much agree. Aeralik needs no one to stand up and give an excuse for. He has a job, he has a job description, and I am sure that includes him reporting to someone, and some reporting to him. We have never been provided a clear definition of what that is, only that he is in some form responsible for the fighter mechanics of the game. Now, as Kage said, in the past Aeralik has made some disparaging remarks about the Berserkers and other classes of which we have no idea if these were made in jest, or for real, however, as I pointed out in wwc today, in a management position, there is something called tact, and it has been sorely missed with Aeralik. Now, in regards to dev's and their playing.. personally, I would like to see that dev's are banned from playing on live servers. This would reduce any possibilities of favoritism, even if being perceived, from happening. It has been documented of improprieties taken place, and therefore, has tarnished the appearance of developers playing. Its very disappointing to hear that the developers of this game clearly know that on class, Guardians, are far and away (i.e. see overpowered), better than all other fighter classes in the game. This is something that SHOULD have been exposed in testing, and I find it hard to believe that it was missed. If it was not and oversight, then it was clearly a direction that they wanted to take the game and therefore, SHOULD have notified the player base of this change. If it was an oversight, then the developers clearly did not do their job competently. Now, if you, or I do not do my job, I end up being reprimanded, or fired, and I will leave it at that.
I would like see what the class devs actually deal with each day at SOE. Not that I could do anything better. There are so many theories that I would love to see the actual trueth.
Lyger!!! LEAVE EQ2 already! C'mon man.. you know you want to. I'll bury my Zerk next to yours. Come play AoC for a little while. Still in the 'buggy' phase but so much more enjoyable at the moment. Cheaper too if I recall correctly. See ya there! **Edit** Breaking News!!! "Also won't need Ventrillo once GU47 rolls out " /> That in-game voice thing will be a pickup group/raids dream." So THIS is why the Zerk have no immediate future plans and only a possibility of something in the long run... geez.. Thanks SOE.
well i've decided to hold off for a little bit to see how the development works out, seeing as how i will be able to see what the devs really put up with in the class development side of things. i don't know if i will be the only spokesperson for our class or not yet but i suppose i will find this all out soon enough. everyone who i know who has played AoC didn't stick around there for too long, once the flashy graphics wear off it is still a beta testing game that was prematurely released after all..
Prediction time: If/When they do make the improvement to the Berserker class, guess whats gonna happen from most of the guardians? (Won't be hearing it from me, but it will be said) OMG You Beefed up Zerkers So Much! They can take hits just as well as we can! They can out DPS Us! They have snap aggro! GIVE US MORE DPS! The statement has been made. Mark my words. inc jealousy from many Guardians in roughly 6 months....5 months..... 4 months.... Incoming!
the only time a zerk can or will be able to take hits like a guardian is for the 15 seconds or so that adrenaline is active on. as i've said before, and is well known during character creation, zerks are not the defensive tank. hence the name "berserker" as grown into our roles as offtanks though and even as maintanks(heroic tanks can benefit just as well) it can be tough to hold aggro when the raid is unloading everthing they can to blow up adds as soon as they pop, that is where snap aggro comes in. the other things that needs tweaking is our temporary offensive abilities that were not given proper upgrades in RoK.
Lyger@Mistmoore wrote: Ya... AoC is still rough around the edges, but hell, it's only been out for a month. Look at all the problems EQ2, WoW, EvE, etc etc has had from their launch till now. At any rate, it is a refreshing 'newness' that draws you in, and it's fun... which is a heck of alot more than I can say for EQ2. Anyway, good luck, and don't stress too much!
Zhonata wrote: Amen. I understand not having time to try to adjust the class balance between now and the expansion. It's a daunting task and this game does not have infinite development resources like some. But to have things that don't do what they say they will do for 8 months (20 months for some!). That's just embarrassing.
Path@Vox wrote: Ya, but how many of those Guards are going to run back to the betrayal quest to return to Zerk? IF they actually do something about it that is... which we all know they won't. But yes, I do agree. You will see a major knee jerk, but I'd imagine it would only be from the 'sheep' crowd, and not necessarily from the people who actually follow what this game is/isn't doing. It's just sad that it goes on for so long. And no matter how many legitimate arguments are posted, and valid data results crunched, apparently our beloved Zerk community is playing the game entirely wrong, because Aeralik still thinks we are quite adequate in our 'designated role or a tank'. So ya, sorry to break it to us all, but we all don't know how to play a Zerk tank obviously. (for those of you who fail at sarcasm...) At any rate, It is nice to see that some are still very level headed about all of this. I'd imagine there are a 'select few' in the Guard community (who were originally Guards and not betrayed Zerks) who also have a fairly good insight as to what is going on. I even remember when they broke my Necro pet way back in the day. Pathing... good grief. And after a year later, they 'claim' it's better. Funny how the pet never had an issue with following it's master until the DEVs 'fix' something... they they can't figure out how to 'unfix' it, so what do they do? Smoke & mirrors my good friends... smoke & mirros... Angry Mob: "This is an outrage! Everything worked fine with this just prior to this last patch!" Smug Devs: "Quick! Look over here! We are gonna break all this other crap so you'll quickly forget about your current problem" Angry Mob: "Uh... sorry I don't follow." Smug Devs: "Task completed." Angry Mob: "Waah Whine /stomp foot!" Smug Devs: "OMG! What's that!" Angry Mob: "Where!?" Smug Devs: "Task completed." (a.k.a. GU#xx) ... Aeralik (Chris Kozak): "You have a defined role which is tanking. I am well aware though that guardians are far beyond everyone else in tanking especially raids. I have said a few times recently though that we will not be making any changes in the short term. In the longer term there are some changes to enhance survivability of the non guardian fighters but nothing concrete that I can commit to or comment on. I would expect to see some of that in the fall though and perhaps some discussion at fan faire if the question is brought up." Community (Zerks): "You have a defined role which is DEV..." I could go on and on. But why bother. I get more enjoyment out of picking lent out of my pockets than playing EQ2. Poor Aeralik... can't he be impeached or anything? Bring in the 'Hellokittyonline' dev team. Might be an improvement.
therodge wrote: When did aggro get to be a problem for Berserkers. I never have trouble holding aggro, even on 70-80k raid DPS with DPSers doing up to 8-9k. Aggro in general is not an issue. I rarely even use taunts except a couple of times a fight like right on the pull. Now, SNAP aggro is. For me personally it's not much of an issue since I'm MT, but for OT Berserkers (read: the vast majority), snap aggro is a must. The only time it's an issue for me is on mem-wiping mobs, or if I die. My point is, Berserkers (when they are played properly) have no trouble holding aggro, getting aggro back after a mem-wipe or death, or picking the mob up fast if you're OT is an issue though. I wish people would stop saying how useless the Whirlwind clicky is. I love that thing. I love pulling 3-4 encounters in SoH and burning them all down at once It's great on any fight with adds, which are more common than people make out. It actually saved us from a wipe the other night in VP when we pulled a Fire Drake and a second one teleported on top of the raid. The OT tried to pick up the second one and died right away since the healers weren't ready, but Whirlwind+Insolence made it so the second one was right on me instead of rampaging the raid and wiping us and I ended up tanking both drakes. Increas single target DPS? Sure, why not. I can already do 5-6k single target pretty regularly, but I'll take more, sure.
whirlwind is great BUT if you're not MT is can be a wolf in sheeps clothing. AE aggro control with it is nice but i almost have to turn it off on occasion because it brings me unwanted aggro. pulling a few mobs in SoH can be fun, if you are the zerk MT, if our guard pulls 3 i will be tanking 2 of them and depending on my group for the night, i could be broken in a matter of minutes if i don't watch myself. other point is it broke open wounds, which certainly didn't make too many zerks happy having another one of our abilities go south. part of the issue is perception, when i MT and the scout or clothie yanks aggro 2 seconds into the fight and dies, i shrug it off and move on telling myself "i guess they shouldn't lay it all out so much". then i do the same and start to get annoyed when i'm pulling mobs left and right and dying, just trying to DPS because i'm not tanking anything at the moment, err well trying not to tank anything anyways. zerks have too much hate gain when not tanking, i just can't believe we are getting more. i don't want our mythical to be a situational weapon but it seems to appear that is what it is being forced into being, at least whirlwind is an ability and applies to any weapon you may have equipped i just find it rather saddening i will only have my mythical equipped when i have a mob facing me.
Caster has a 100% chance of having their primary weapon's autoattack affect multiple target they are Facing, who are within melee range. According the decriptiong it is exactly the same as openwounds so the monster dont have to be facing you. Now if the effect is diffrent than the description what else is new. My question is didnt open wound use to affect 8 targets these probably was changed a long time ago and i just didnt remember when i came back. How many tagets does the effect affect? 4?
I don't believe Lyger was saying that the mob has to be facing you in order to be hit with your AE auto attacks, but that it will only be really useful if you're tanking (therefore mobs facing you) otherwise you'll be grabbing unwanted aggro.
