Theorycrafting - Lore Logic vs Gameplay

[ChaosSlayerZ]

Many EQ players are RPers at heart, and like when things thematically align, even if they don't always show. Myself, I am also such person, and like when "things make logical sense". Like - if you hold a gnome underwater long enough - he will drown. But mermaids can breath in water, so they are ok. Yeah I know all npcs in EQ do not drown regardless if they mermaids or hill giants - because gameplay. But I can live with that one - its a technical limitation.

But lets talk thematic inconsistences. Lets say - Fire Elementals are immune to fire. Should be, the are pure flame right? But now let say we have a Mage who specializes in School of Fire. He has some non fire spells, but his primary spell power comes from Fire spells, and he faces Fire Elementals - he going to be useless.
I know that in actual EQ - Mages don't get to specialize like that, and they have ton of spells to compensate for mobs that have specific high resists and all that. And EQ doesn't have actually have mobs that completely immune to specific type of damage - even Fire Elementals take damage from Fire spells, even though they resist a lot.

But for a moment, lets presume Lore Logic > Gameplay, then Fire Elementals are 100% immune, and our Fie specialized mage is 99% useless against them. Now imagine a situation where guild or group goes to a place like Sol A or B, and leader says: no Fire Mages please - you guys are dead weight here. Sucks to be fire mage right?
Similar situation occurs when you are Frost Mage and no one wants you in a Ice Dungeon because - you are useless.

Now if we expand further - your class mostly casts posing and disease spells - guess what all Undead are immune - because they already dead, you can't poison or sicken them. Also - all elemental creatures also immune - they not living beings.
So we just made playing Necro and Shaman a total nightmare.

So does 100% thematically logical works for you?

If it doesn't then another question arises: certain classes in EQ have bonus spells - like Clerics and Paladins have spells that do high damage to Undead. Its very thematic, but it borders on game balance issues - why there are bonus spells vs some creature type but not others? Why only some classes get these bonus spells?

Why there are no bonus spells vs Insects or Animals? Why Mages and Enchanters don't get these bonus spells at all, but Clerics and Necros do? Also, isn't it disbalancing that only certain creature type get this vs bonus, but other don't?
If you say that - but it is thematically appropriate! Enchanter or Wizard having vs Undead spells do not make any sense! In this case why not Undead and Elementals 100% immune to Poison and Disease? Why not Fire Elemental 100% immune to fire?

I remind you that this is not a discussion about EQ per say, but a theoretical question how much do you value Lore Logic vs Gameplay? How much of Lore Logic you willing to sacrifice to ensure you don't end up in situation where you class is 99% useless vs specific type of monsters?

Would you have preferred that game would be MORE thematically logical? Or less? For example after many years in WoW they completely did away with resistances. So you can hit Fire Elemental just as efficiently with fire spell as with cold spells, poisons, etc etc. Why? For the sake of gameplay.

To conclude - I actually working on my own server design, and since I am very thematically inclined, I have this urge to go the way where - elementals immune to the magic of their own type, undead cannot be poisoned, etc etc. Cleric can blast Undead with such power that become better than Wizards in that area. But them I stop myself and I ask - will this even be playable? How much fun would I have as Fire Mage - if I am not able to able to touch HUGE groups of mobs because of this theme settings?

Feel free to share your thoughts.

[Splose]

My opinion is to go with logical lore like what you outlined when it is not going to create negative experiences for players. I think for instance with Clerics being able to nuke undead harder than wizards.. Players are just going to bring 6 Clerics to places like Sebilis to the exclusion of other classes.

I have thought about doing this stuff in the past as well but every server I have been involved in from a development perspective literally just devolves into players logging in and asking what the best class is and going with that. If casters are strong people will just literally not play melee and vice versa. We have all played this game for so long that it seems even on custom servers people just want to min/max to the end as quickly as possible even if they are playing classes they don't enjoy. Obviously this isn't everyone but its a lot of people.

I will say that I think it is good that someone is thinking outside of the box and actually making something different for once. I think the server list has been pretty stale lately. The bar for new servers has been set low for quite a long time.

This is an interesting discussion, though. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

Greetings Splose, thank you for stopping by

So yeah, I been thinking about new ways and new class balance a lot. My goal is to make something in spirit of EQ, but yet completely new, to bring back that sense of adventure, where every min/maxer doesn’t know exact spawn time and drop rates of Manastone down to a second.

So on subject of class balance, I was never really happy with very narrow vision of original EQ where some classes too limited. I want a set up where all classes can solo, but when it comes to groups or raids specialization kicks in. I am leaning towards something close to early EQ2 idea where let say Wizard can solo and blowing up mobs really fast, but he is a glass-cannon and needs to take downtime to recover mana. Cleric on other hand is a slow soloer, but due to efficient mana and hp management he has literally no downtime. So in the end solo rates of both classes will be somewhat similar, where Wizard can drop 5 targets and then rest for 5 min, where cleric takes all this time to kill 5 targets. And rest of classes fall somewhere in between. This is of course very rough draft, as there going to be situational bonuses and class perks.

Now going back to special bonuses issue. As you correctly pointed out – if Cleric bonus spell package is too good – it makes everyone one else useless, and mostly undead zone will be done by 6 Cleric groups, which is bad The goal is to find this middle ground where classes get this LORE PERK, without going into extremes. In original EQ Cleric is such a poor soloer, that even with his bonus vs Undead nukes, its hardly making a difference. Essentially, original EQ Cleric (untwinked) can only truly solo vs Undead, because even if his vs Undead spell are better than his normal spells, it still too poor to make a difference, not to mention they eat his spell slots. In a group setting, and in undead dungeon, Cleric may contribute some DPS, but again his primary role is group support. What they did in WoW and EQ2, instead of giving priests separate spell package vs undead or elementals, then gave them double damage bonus when used vs special targets. So Cleric nukes in EQ2 work on all targets but deal double damage vs Undead. I am wondering if this is better way to go.

Now going back to Fire mage vs Fire Elementals – full on 100% resist is problematic, unless Mage has some other spell set as back up (for the record- I hate WoW Dual Specialization thing, and easy switch back and forth – if you pick a Spec – you suppose to stay in that spec, otherwise what’s the point? Of course all specs must balanced enough o be all decently useful, and not like – this is awesome solo spec that 100% useless in raid, and vice-verse).

And final issue is – should all classes have this special situation where they really god vs A and really bad vs B? Like what can you do with Shaman? Who are Shaman’s easy victims and who are his nemeses? Also to keep in mind, that in a typical setting not all groups of monsters are equally represented. There is usually a lot of Undead, but much fewer elementals or dragons outside of high end game, which creates another disparity.

[Snippet60]

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.