I have been waiting for someone to go off with a reimagining of what these systems could do.
I wholly support the idea of staying more strict with lore but also using the mechanics that are available to us.
In your example with a mage, you are correct. A magician should not be able to attack a fire based NPC with much of any success with fire spells. But let's look at the three other options a magician has. They have shocks, which are magic based, they have banes which are also magic based, and they have pets, which would offer physical and a bit of a different element (if you use the right pet).
So should a magician who is using fire spells against a fire mob suck? Yes, should they be doing it? Absolutely not.
I can't really think of a single situation where a class has only one option and are rendered useless against an NPC. Even in the case of melee, they could and should be using magical weapons or weapons with bane.
Now, on the flip side. I personally think the biggest mistake of EQ was not realizing and fleshing out their bane and specialized forms of damage.
Should clerics be able to absolutely destroy undead? Yup. Paladins? Oh, heck yes. Not just cleansing, but they should have expanded bane damages. I remember I was SO excited to try out the very first ever undead DoT clerics got and being so disappointed that it was just...meh.
I think you could really reimagine and refresh the same old formula that all of these servers have been doing by really looking at the tools available right now by tweaking some of these systems.
Not only that, but every class should be able to shine somewhere. Shamans and necromancers? Poison and disease should definitely affect living things more than elemental or magical beings. Wizards should be able to have a niche against either elemental mismatches or maybe magical things more so than living things.
Enchanters should be able to disenchant a magical based thing with absolute ease, I'm thinking summoned and anything held together with magic.
I think the same would go with melee. I think rogues should have little affect on things without backs.. hah, and non-living things, but they absolutely should destroy heavily armored living things with backstab.
Monks should be able to have a huge advantage over humanoids, and giants or dragons, but certainly not watery, airy, or fiery elementals.
I think really fleshing out this system would add so much more fun to the game, people would research their targets, plot out their builds, not just look for the best ratio weapon and call it good.
Now how to make sure it doesn't get out of hand with six clerics all grouping together? Well, I guess you could intermix types of mobs, or heck, if six clerics want to get together and go rage Venril Sathir, why not. They never got the opportunity for years. If there was a class mix with too much of an advantage over a certain encounter, add a guard or two of the opposing type to help discourage exploitation. I'm thinking of animal guards protecting undead bosses, which could make things fun.
I think some work on this type of server would pay dividends and encourage a lot more flavor to the game.
I really do wonder why they had the opportunity for years to put bane damage to use and never did. Maybe it's hard, maybe it takes some work. Maybe they never got the freedom to really do it because they had to follow a forumla for 28 expansions. But, why not try it.
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