Will Daybreak games shut down in 2 months?

The problem with "balance" is criteria. Are you worried about damage output? Healing? Survivability? Holding aggro? Or just having a useful role you're good at? Ask twelve players and you get twenty definitions. It's a fool's errand.

 

I'm not a big fan of the term "class balance" either. I remember when I came back to the game after a break (tov) and dirges where winning scout parses.

I would much prefer classes be organized around class defining abilities like the old days.

Now, we have encounters designed purely around memorizing scripts and nukes, presumably because they game is easier to produce that way.

 

Unless there is only a single class, with a homogenous set of skills, advancement path and armor, classes will never be 'balanced' in the way the majority of the player base uses the term.

And even then, there will be those that are faster at mashing buttons in order, or have a better internet speed.

I agree, a focus on distinct skills and roles is much more interesting.

But, you guessed it, it's also more difficult to design around. EQ back in the day, and early on in EQ2 there was more than just a DPS check, but at least in EQ2 that's been stripped down until now the large number of 'class choices' are all differences told by an idiot, sound and fury, signifying nothing.

It's easier to just slap on a gear score and dps check, instead of design encounters (though some games do both).

 

Fuli and Tekka I agree with you both.

When I started playing EQ2 shortly after it launched, each class had their distinct responsibilities. The tank/position mobs and hold aggro, healers/heal and cure, chanters/mezz and stun, bards/buffs and true dps classes (wizard/warlock, ranger/assassin, brigand/swashbuckler etc) were responsible for damage output.

Some how over time that morphed into every one trying to vie for position for the highest dps output using act as a gauge. It used to make me crazy as a healer that I was also being judged for my dps output when I felt it more important that I was focused on healing and curing. Heck, I remember joining groups where we had healers that thought they were pure dps and they weren't healing or curing.

Then eventually when they added ascended abilities we reached the point of no return as far as true class distinctions and now every one is a mage more or less.

 

I was leveling a holy paladin in WoW a few years ago and was in a group (in our 50s) and a group tried to kick me for being lowest dps until the tank reminded them im the healer, I SHOULD be lowest dps and that no one had died yet... and I managed to keep him and me alive when we were the only two in the room with a boss when the doors closed (the others were off killing mobs in a side hallway for sport, I guess). He put me on friend list and told me I could heal for him anytime since I knew what my job was, unlike those dps'ers.

Made me swear off LFG in any game unless im just dps class only!

 

I loved my brig. I've never considered myself dps, but a utility class that can do pretty good damage if played well (allthough, I was owning parses in aom thanks to dust and ethereals).

Still, I loved my role of debuffing the crap out of mobs - that was my role. And if I had to give up dps yo do that, perfectly happy to do it.

 

Brigands and Swashbucklers would be more of a utility class. I thought about that after I lumped them in with the pure dps classes. I claim old age and senility .

 

My swashbuckler will never do the DPS of a ranger.

My swashbuckler's debuffs are not desired like a brigand's debuffs in a raid setting.

Even if I had all my ascensions and combat arts to ancient level and was sporting a full set of T3 gear, my swashbuckler still wouldn't shine like a T1 DPSing ranger or a debuffing brigand.

Now, if they merged the swashbuckler and brigand into one class and called it "rogue", and gave us the best of both classes, then my class might be deemed "raid worthy". I know I parse well enough on my swashbuckler as he is now, but stick him in the "mish mash" group in raid, and he's not as effective as I know he can be.

 

I've been a raid defiler for nearly a decade. Most anyone who raided with me in that time has heard me say, "ignore the heal parse, if you're keeping them alive and curing when you should you're doing fine". DPS is icing on the cake, and anyone that can't get that about any brand of healer...well, I want nothing to do with them.

Also, I remember when "crowd control" was a thing.

And when scouts and mages spec'd differently.

Honestly, encounter design in EQ2 is dead.

 

My brig was born a swash. But after about Rok, offensive debuffs became and more useless. In addition, in the old days, hurricane was the swashies uber. Then everyone could get 100% ae auto, then auto became largely obsolete anyway.

I really do feel for swashies. That class has been repeatedly hosed and nothing has been done about it.

Well, except for the 27 temps they have.

 

Don't forget to shake your cane and shout 'Get offa my lawn! And while you're at it, pull up your pants!' - while heading toward them at max speed on your hover-round.

XD

 

My main is a fury and I've been through this when I was raiding. Being told off by the RL in the middle of the raid for not doing enough DPS, and not being on the parse. Yet when I asked about the heal parse, I was consistently at the top and by a long way (heal-specced). I then asked what, precisely, was I in the raid for if not to actually, you know....heal? Silence. The primary healer was also a fury - she used to stand beside the MT and take full frontal AOE damage from the mob and die regularly, leaving the other healers in the other groups to try and keep her group healed as well as our own. Very, very frustrating. Yet she was lauded as being the uber-Fury!! She was utterly ineffective as far as I could tell. Not to mention a complete prat.

 

Fury was never my main raid toon and I mostly solo healed the mage group in the casual guild I played it. I never really cared about anything outside the mage group so I dps'ed my heart out while keeping the group alive and pre-curing. So satisfying to see the detriments just "blink" on my group while the other groups ticked and ticked for seconds before they were cured. Knowing the encounters from my main raid force and having timers for all aoe's helped me do my job and time the heals so I could dps in between. But yeah, my main job was to keep the group alive... and cure.

Tbh, pre-curing and time the group cures was the most fun I had playing fury.

I never really played my fury (or any other healer) outside of raids or outside the mage group so I have zero experience of MT healing. I did however during my hc raiding years play with some healers that could put out amazing dps while keeping the MT group alive.

I also ran into healers that dps'ed liked crazy but could not keep their group alive. They were kicked from the guild pretty quick. Also had healers that didn't dps much but they kept their group alive and the RL's I had never complained about that. If they could dps as well, it was just an extra bonus.

 

I define "balance" as "no longer favoring one class over the other". They need to fix heal mechanics (really, just getting rid of one-shot AE's would be huge), rein in Dragonfire, etc. It won't take much. Yes there's always going to be people that complain but you can't please everyone.

 

Balance is not a flat line between all 26 class.. All class with the same potential in any situation. so boring.

Balance is to gave each class a "purpose", at the end all class should be full enjoyable, with some class able to do better in some encounter, and other class top in other. The key is to program the encounter in order to offer a decent variety. Easy stuff should be done by everyone, hard core end game raid should have some requirement, but in any case use most of the class or subclass (wiz/war, necro/conju, monk/bruiser.. ecc ecc),

 

Balance becomes near impossible when the 'Roles' of each class have become so blurred that they all morph into one.

I'm sure we'll see a couple of one liners in the near future suggesting they'll fix it in expac, then 2 weeks into Beta saying they cba.

 

I think that ship has sailed for them.. nobody is going to believe it any more.

 

Snuck in and fixed that for you, Feldon.