Quote:
Originally Posted by GRUMPY
I totally agree that EQ has too many classes. I suppose they had a reason for it, in the
beginning. I am no expert on EQ's original motives for the way they designed classes,
but I am inclined to think it wasn't about class balancing, it was more about group
balancing and purpose.
Tanks, melee, healers, slowers, nukers, crowd control, slowers, buffers, etc. All built for
various tasks in a group when going to hunt. Everyone had their job to do. But EQ was
not originally built for the "solo player". I would agree, some classes got screwed with
future expansions. (like the druid/wizzy ports, etc.)
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Yeah, original EQ design was heavily lifted from DnD.
What designers failed to realize is that in DnD you ALWAYS playing in pre-made party, where players initially intentionally pick classes to form the best balanced group.
Obviously doesn't work this way in MMO. So say you need a tank - you got 3 to pick from right? Not exactly because if you want to raid - you better have a Warrior - which become even more and more restrictive with each next expansion. It reached truly ridiculous levels, when during OoW era a top geared paladin with 1,500 AAs was ONE-SHOTED by a raid mob, and Dev basically told the players that "you need a tank for this encounter" - meaning you actually need a warrior and warrior only. Honestly this is no way to make a game. Same goes for healers - you need Cleric to heal. I mean druid and shamy are Ok for pick up groups but you want to touch raids you MUST have minimum set number of clerics or you screwed.
In short the abundance of classes seems cool on a casual scale, but completely fails in the end game. Raiding Mage - toy maker, really? Necro - mana battery for clerics? Thats retarded.
They somewhat ratified the situation in EQ2 where they made all healers and all tanks more or less equal in terms of power, but with different edge.