Combat Concerns....

[Deadjester]

Greetings all, I am new here, been a EQ player since 99 and switched over to EQII in hopes of, well many things..... , the most important didnt happen.

Its funny, as you get older, you get to be more picky about what you want to invest your time and money into. I enjoy MMOs, and I am not one to constantly jump ship so I am looking for one that I will enjoy for a while, so I have a few concerns I would like to voice.

I do not mean to offend anyone by all my questions, I just have learned alot since I started EQ in early 99 and have some questions I hope will get ansewered.

I have always loved the feel EQ/EQII had in many ways. I think EQII had travel down about right. You always had land to travel through, but you could shorten it down some with a boat ride. What I had issues with was the general combat system, and how it treated the class's.

What I mean by this is each class seemed to have its own rules governing how each stat worked for it and that went for weapons to. In my next statments I am not going to break down the differences between EQ/EQII but put it all together to save reading time.

The same str and skill stat and weapon combo, did not result in the same damage result which to me doesnt make sense and would seem to make it very, very hard to balance it in the end.

Abilites for damage instead of adding to you over all damage output, became you main damage out put, making weapons almost meaningless.

Also most of the abilities were just damage causing in effect which to me limited the class defining.

What some would say was a class defining feature for the EQ Pal was its stun ability. I didnt play a Pal but I know many that did. The common complaint was that many mobs were immun to it either by lvl or type.
So instead of making some mobs either more resistant to it or it having a lesser duration on it, the ability became useless in many, many cases as mobs became either level immune or just immune.

That is a what I have a concern about here to, for any class, a class defining feature that turns out to well. Instead of it being tuned in various ways, it gets nerfed to the point of uselessness.

And in combat, DnD I think had some good ides, (talking RPG PnP). Stats had the same effect on a weapon and weapons did the same reguardless of class. What seperated them was skill and abilities out side stats and weapons.

Example (just making things up), I can see a War, Pal, Rog with the same stats and weapons doing the same damage with them. What seperates them are their abilties. Maybe the war gets one extra/or stronger atk ability over the Pal, and Rog. But the Pal is causeing other things to happen, many he is hard to hit and the Rog once he starts flanking starts pulling even more DPS then the War now that he is in his element.

But its all in degrees, but how big are those degrees? Do the weapons become meaningless to the abilities? Are class so far out stripping each other in DPS that they are doing double, and triple, etc damage then each other making more tanks in a group also meaningless?

How are mobs handled, EQII I think was getting real close on mobs but EQ just made each mob harder and harder where you needed groups just to take down a lemming.

Can Healers actualy join the fray now and not worry about a tanking droping dead if he blinks?

I know the game is real young and I searched some of the fourms and I am just curious on what the philosophys are behind Vanguard combat.

How fast is the combat? So fast that you need to be 16 and a XBOX junkie or so slow that you can get up and make a meal?

I Know this post comes out as a grilling, but I have heard alot of people talk about vanguard and it has gotten me interested. I loved alot of the old EQ feel, I just hated how the combat system treated alot of the class's.

But I have to say, EQ class's did have alot of tatics going on between them and the newer and newer games seem to be dumbing down the class's and going for the quick button mashing damage.

Well good luck and I hope you take this post in the spirit it was ment, for I am looking foward to see how it turns out.

[ellestil]

I'll try to answer your concerns with what info I have gathered.

As far as weapon damage and such, I haven't seen a specific answer to that question of how exactly damage of weapon (with stat bonuses of player included) will work. I do know that weapon choices will affect your ability to react to encounters. For example, a 2hnd sword with a 4 sec delay means you can't react as quickly as a 1hnd sword with a 2 sec delay. I also took this as, specials will not be spammed. You choose the special you wish to use and it goes off when the weapon is ready. It's not swing, swing, special, special+swing, swing, swing. It's either a swing because you didn't choose any special attack, or a special attack when the weapon is ready to be used.

So this leads to speed of combat. They announced that this will not be twitch based spam combat. Instead, you will be watching (via perception) what the mob is doing and what your party members are doing. You will react to what the mob does, as well as plan your own attack. Not as slow as turn based combat, not as fast as button mashing. You COULD button mash, but it won't be efficient gameplay. An extra backhand sword slash attack does you no good if you perceive the mobs next attack was to take out your healer, or summon a buddy. Unless the extra attack would finish the mob, but that's for you to try and decide.

Healers in VG will have offensive capabilities ( some more than others of course ). In fact, everyone has an offensive target they select and a defensive target. This means, a cleric will pick the mob as the offensive target and can pitch in for melee/casting, at the same time he has a defensive target selected (i.e. the tank) which he will keep alive. They have stated that they do not want healers in VG to be bar watchers like they have been in the past. Which is great considering healers are the least played/most wanted classes.

Hope that helps!

Ellestil