This is why I think EQ had far better magic combat than any other game.

[Stokowski]

EQ had a magic system that allowed for (even demanded) some interesting tactical maneuvers. I particularly loved that crowd control was such a large part of proceedings. It was sad that CC, as a 4th core component (tank, dps, heal, control), was not a part of WoW's design ... and so now everybody speaks of the holy trinity, even though it originally had four members. *sigh*



Anyway, enjoy your obligatory Dutch Disco reference ...

 

[Damned Registrations]

Well, WoW had CC available on multiple classes. I actually rather liked the way they handled it, with for example undead being immune to the rogue mez (sap) but vulnerable to the priest equivalent, druid's having an option vs animals, etc. with mages being the most versatile.

Of course, the casual tards complained they had to press more than one button to clear dungeons (and later raids) so enemies got nerfed until CC was utterly pointless.

 

[Gregz]

the most fun I had was in a group and that had zero kiting. It was a really deep and complex game and it is sad that you get butthurt because you never played it.

Getting lucky enough to find a good group when you were online was a lot of fun.

But you have to admit, not being able to find a camp, people flaking out or DCing, getting train trolled, and the million other horrible ways to die or just sit around not getting xp wasn't so great. Camp contention was the worst, and instance dungeons and group finder (such as in WoW) really were a necessary evil.

That was the problem with EQ. If the server was underpopulated you couldn't find a group, if it was overpopulated you couldn't find a camp. You had to just get lucky, or have a hell of a lot of time on your hands.

 

[anvi]

Well, WoW had CC available on multiple classes. I actually rather liked the way they handled it, with for example undead being immune to the rogue mez (sap) but vulnerable to the priest equivalent, druid's having an option vs animals, etc. with mages being the most versatile.

Of course, the casual tards complained they had to press more than one button to clear dungeons (and later raids) so enemies got nerfed until CC was utterly pointless.

:/

And WoW CC was already dumbed down compared to EQ. For a start, in WoW when you turn an enemy into a sheep, they no longer become attackable. In EQ, the Enchanter would Mesmerize a mob and it would just stop moving but look the same. But people could still attack it and it would wake the mob up, either by attacking it directly if you used an area spell and it hit that mob, it would wake it up. This was bad because not only did the slept mob wake up again, but it would focus on the Enchanter who put him to sleep in the first place and he is so squishy, he has a good chance of dying because of someone elses mistake.

Not only that but the EQ Enchanter was pretty high tech with big CC. Say you had a really bad pull and 8 mobs come, most groups are just instantly fucked. People start panicking and the mobs just slaughter everyone in no time. With a good Enchanter, their routine was:

1) Area Effect stun which only lasts a few seconds but it is enough to stop all the mobs at once and give the Ench a chance to do something else.
2) Area magic reduction to give a chance of landing mez
(Sometimes another AoE stun here)
3) Area Mesmerization which puts all mobs to sleep

But there was a chance a mez resisting on any of the targets, and also a chance that it would mez the Enchanter himself too. So it was highly risky. Most people just did single target Mez but if the shit hit the fan, the area thing was worth trying before dying.

MMOs since then have not only dumbed down CC, but it is rare that you even get too many mobs to handle in the first place. In dungeons all the mobs are in little groups that are easy to tag in a nice bite sized chunk. In EQ you ideally wanted to fight things 1 or 2 at a time, yet mobs would often be in groups of 8 or so, so it required a clever pulling trick, or some sort of intense CC. So much has changed in gaming since 1999.

the most fun I had was in a group and that had zero kiting. It was a really deep and complex game and it is sad that you get butthurt because you never played it.

Getting lucky enough to find a good group when you were online was a lot of fun.

But you have to admit, not being able to find a camp, people flaking out or DCing, getting train trolled, and the million other horrible ways to die or just sit around not getting xp wasn't so great. Camp contention was the worst, and instance dungeons and group finder (such as in WoW) really were a necessary evil.

That was the problem with EQ. If the server was underpopulated you couldn't find a group, if it was overpopulated you couldn't find a camp. You had to just get lucky, or have a hell of a lot of time on your hands.

Yeah there was about as much that I hated in EQ as there was stuff I loved. I had a really hard time finding groups in my first few years and it was a horrible experience. That's why I soloed so much. And I hated travelling for ages to somewhere I wanted to hunt, then I get there and it is full of people. I also hated how some items with random drop and random spawn (or PH) could just mean I have to camp there for days on end just to get an item that most people got in a few hours. There was a lot of lame stuff...

But I loved the combat so much Vanguard had good combat too, much better classes than EQ, but they took the dumbing down route with everything else which kinda ruined them. Mobs died too fast, etc.

 

[vonAchdorf]

I picked necromancer because it was one of the more versatile classes when it came to being able soling content. Not the most sought after class in groups maybe, but once you had a reputation (summon corpse anyone) or were in a guild, that was't a real problem. And I liked the feats you could pull off solo (and sometimes in groups).

 

[anvi]

Necro was probably the best class I ever played in any game. Either that or the Ench. But the Nec was just so self sufficient and I rarely died because of Harmshield and FD.

A lot of people never played the Necro to its full potential too. It could do almost anything (not well, but still).. Like one time I was in an epic battle against about 10 mobs and we won in the end, but during the fight the Cleric went completely out of mana. He was sitting and medding while we were fighting, hoping to find enough mana for one more heal that could have made all the difference between us wiping completely or winning in the most epic way. I opened my spellbook and got some Pact spells up and I started to click them on the others in the group. I left the tank so the Cleric could use his one big heal on him, but all the other guys who have low HP totals and low hp because of damage, I just started topping up all their health. People were like, WTF where are these extra heals coming from?! Low HP aggro was deadly so it was nice to keep Wizzies and people alive.

My personal favorite trick was when things went bad and we ended up with too many mobs, I would target some trouble making mob that was beating on the Cleric or something, and cast a few of my big over time spells on it, then I would cast my huge damage poison DoT spell, right at the start of the fight. It was usually a bad idea because the aggro was huge so the mob would come straight for me. But I would let it hit me a few times and then use my upgraded Harmshield that healed me a bit, and I would just sit down and med while this died and couldn't touch me. Good way of getting rid of 1 mob fast.

Good Necros also used to use Screaming Terror to mez stuff as well. It wasn't as good as a Bard or Ench but you could still lock down a couple of mobs really well. And if you parked one or two with root, and then Screaming Terror a couple of casters, you were almost as good as an Ench!

And when I was goofing around in Karnor's Castle, and a Shaman and Ranger shows up. We teamed up but were lacking a tank, so I summon my Spectre pet and now we have a tank! It wasn't as good as a real player but it let us get some Exp while we waited for a tank to show up. And one time I was grouped with a Warrior and Cleric husband and wife team. They just needed pure DPS because the warrior held onto mobs like glue and the cleric kept him alive easily. So I switched to the Rogue pet who did backstabs and we slaughtered stuff.

That class was awesome...

 

[vonAchdorf]

That makes me nostalgic. I loved the versatility - like you said, extra heals, various pet types, emergency tap tanking, backup or emergency CC, summon corpse, rezzing the cleric as sole survivor in a plane wipe, reaching difficult areas with FD, the two types of invisibility, pre-nerf CoS,...

 

[anvi]

Yeah great. I remember a guildy was in a group that died in the King room in Lower Guk. He was in a group there and they evacced or something and he got left behind and died. It was so far away, nobody was sure how to get the body back and we didn't have summon corpse back then. I guess a rogue could have sneaked there but we didn't know any rogues, so my pimp Necro got there like a ninja. Invis undead to the bridge, then FD to get rid of the gargs and bats and shit. And then normal invis all the way to the king room and if it ever fades I could just FD and do it again. Being able to walk through an entire dungeon by yourself was so cool...

 

[Damned Registrations]

Best group I ever had in EQ was me + 4 other mages. We were all having trouble finding a group because every group wanted either a tank or healer, so I convinced the other mages in the zone to group up with me and give it a try- we crushed shit, just swarming enemies with 5 pets and spam nuking it to oblivion/using the extremely efficient pet heals. We basically non stop chain pulled stuff, even comfortably having 2 fights going at once while someone ran off to find another to pull. Aside from it being an effective group in and of itself, it felt great giving a big fuck you to all the other groups in the zone that wouldn't invite mages because they didn't neatly fit the tank/heal/dps meta. Which was definitely a thing back in early EQ, before the usefulness of enchanters (or bards... god forbid you played a bard without a regular party/guild) was widely known.

 

[Beastro]

And WoW CC was already dumbed down compared to EQ. For a start, in WoW when you turn an enemy into a sheep, they no longer become attackable. In EQ, the Enchanter would Mesmerize a mob and it would just stop moving but look the same. But people could still attack it and it would wake the mob up, either by attacking it directly if you used an area spell and it hit that mob, it would wake it up. This was bad because not only did the slept mob wake up again, but it would focus on the Enchanter who put him to sleep in the first place and he is so squishy, he has a good chance of dying because of someone elses mistake.

And chanters could mez low magic resist players and debuff them, like mana draining other casters before breaking the fight and resuming it.

One thing that really threw me going from EQ to WoW was expecting resistances to matter when they were just one of many stats thrown at you.

their routine was:

1) Area Effect stun which only lasts a few seconds but it is enough to stop all the mobs at once and give the Ench a chance to do something else.
2) Area magic reduction to give a chance of landing mez
(Sometimes another AoE stun here)
3) Area Mesmerization which puts all mobs to sleep

Chanters were the heart of AE groups where they'd spam their AE stuns as the wizards and mages spammed their AE damage spells to kill off 20-30 mobs at a time with a Cleric there to spot heal/res the group if they wiped.

He was sitting and medding while we were fighting, hoping to find enough mana for one more heal that could have made all the difference between us wiping completely or winning in the most epic way. I opened my spellbook and got some Pact spells up and I started to click them on the others in the group.

The mana transfer spell was massive, especially since mana isn't a problem for necros. On raids on prog server we necros toss it out to help cut down on the downtime for healers or the recently ressed medding. It's a shame we get only the one version of the spell, it'll ceased being used eventually because it simply restores too small a dose of mana in time (only 150).

 

[Zetor]

And WoW CC was already dumbed down compared to EQ. For a start, in WoW when you turn an enemy into a sheep, they no longer become attackable. In EQ, the Enchanter would Mesmerize a mob and it would just stop moving but look the same. But people could still attack it and it would wake the mob up, either by attacking it directly if you used an area spell and it hit that mob, it would wake it up. This was bad because not only did the slept mob wake up again, but it would focus on the Enchanter who put him to sleep in the first place and he is so squishy, he has a good chance of dying because of someone elses mistake.

Not only that but the EQ Enchanter was pretty high tech with big CC. Say you had a really bad pull and 8 mobs come, most groups are just instantly fucked. People start panicking and the mobs just slaughter everyone in no time. With a good Enchanter, their routine was:

1) Area Effect stun which only lasts a few seconds but it is enough to stop all the mobs at once and give the Ench a chance to do something else.
2) Area magic reduction to give a chance of landing mez
(Sometimes another AoE stun here)
3) Area Mesmerization which puts all mobs to sleep

But there was a chance a mez resisting on any of the targets, and also a chance that it would mez the Enchanter himself too. So it was highly risky. Most people just did single target Mez but if the shit hit the fan, the area thing was worth trying before dying.

MMOs since then have not only dumbed down CC, but it is rare that you even get too many mobs to handle in the first place. In dungeons all the mobs are in little groups that are easy to tag in a nice bite sized chunk. In EQ you ideally wanted to fight things 1 or 2 at a time, yet mobs would often be in groups of 8 or so, so it required a clever pulling trick, or some sort of intense CC. So much has changed in gaming since 1999.

You're really underselling WOW here, at least for vanilla and BC. For one thing, WOW polymorph and other mez-type CC (sap, blind, seduction, shackle, hunter trap and wyvern sting) broke instantly on damage, and all cc had a per-tick chance to break automatically based on resists (your warlock had to apply curse of shadow to the target to make sure the CC landed in the first place, and priest shackle could break at the worst times). Some of this CC was also non-trivial to apply and/or could not be reapplied (sap could only be done out of combat and it had a chance of unstealthing the rogue even if they specced for improved sap; hunter traps could only be placed out of combat and were placed on the hunter's position, so you had to get creative with FD and distracting shot; wyvern sting had a cooldown and applied a DOT after expiration).

That said, the only wow class that really approached an eq enchanter was the warlock, especially when specced affliction. I mained one in vanilla and BC, and I remember cc'ing / kiting up to 4 or even 5 mobs at a time in shadow labyrinth and magister's terrace:
- dot up a melee mob and keep curse of exhaustion on them to kite them around, occasionally hitting them with searing pain to keep aggro over the healer. MAY be possible to do this with 2 mobs, but it'd require too much standing still / casting time or risk losing aggro, especially since I had other CC jobs...
- keep a demon mob banished (hit it with curse of shadow first so it has less chance to break early)
- if available, keep another demon mob enslaved + CoS'd and have it focus on a caster mob to keep aggro on itself
- if the previous is not an option, use the succubus to keep a mob seduced (CoS on that mob too)
- keep a mob feared, and keep an eye on it -- if fear breaks, reapply, and if the mob starts to run towards another enemy group, hit it with curse of recklessness so it becomes immune to fear. Replace with curse of exhaustion when it gets close so it starts running away again.
- emergency CC (death coil, howl of terror) to get any early CC breaks under control or give a breather during a bad pull

I was also a self-sustaining unit with a bunch of things that drained life from the enemy, plus lifetap + dark pact to keep my mana up... kinda necro-y.

It was a pretty intense experience at times, and coordinating CC with the rest of the party was a must. If you just went in YOLOing into heroic magister's terrace (for instance), you'd get obliterated.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Which was definitely a thing back in early EQ, before the usefulness of enchanters (or bards... god forbid you played a bard without a regular party/guild) was widely known.

Bards did have a good time in SoL (?) I think, when they could kite dozens of mobs simultaneously.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I mean, they could always kite dozens of mobs simultaneously, they just couldn't kill them. Great for wiping out anybody sitting down in the zone though.

 

[DragoFireheart]

That sounds like shit.

No wonder EQ failed.

 

[Aildrik]

In regards to WoW, I do miss the strategic coordination needed in Vanilla for dungeons. It seems the devs were still thinking more to their EQ roots back then, and without CC and assist you had disaster after disaster. Now it is nothing but an AOE sprint through trash, even mythic+ runs.

 

[anvi]

Seems all MMOs went the same way :/

 

[Delterius]

It kind of is. But the answer is because it is slow enough to play like a turn based game, yet real time and fast enough that you have to think and make choices quickly.

so just like baldur's gate eh

 

[Beastro]

I mean, they could always kite dozens of mobs simultaneously, they just couldn't kill them. Great for wiping out anybody sitting down in the zone though.

No, they could. Swarm kiting was when a Bard would pull every mob he could manage to grab in a open field zone, then run them around twisting Selo's to keep ahead while doing his damage over time songs that would hit all of the mobs at once. It would take forever for them to kill all the mobs given the ridiculously small amount of damage their dots would do but the net exp was massive but they could manage to kill dozens of mobs in one kite over the course of hours than they ever could killing them one by one.

Swarm kiting was eventually nerfed so that their dot songs were only castable when standing still effectively nuffifying them being used since Bards never use dot songs in group since they break CC.

That sounds like shit.

No wonder EQ failed.

It was insane, but was one of the many unforeseen strategies players figured out as they tested the boundaries of the game. Bards were meant to be a sort-of-caster. Most of their songs used no mana, but they were hobbled by having almost no mana regen skill and the fact their songs didn't do much damage or lasted that long (Bard mezzes lasted only a few seconds compared to enchanter mezzes meaning the Bard had to sit recasting to tie one down to tab between several).

Many of the best tactics were developed through what the developers initially looked on as exploits, like FD split pulling.

EQ didn't fail, it was a success, but being a MMO it's lifetime wasn't that of a single of typical multiplayer game and so it's popularity faded as the game changed.

 

[anvi]

It kind of is. But the answer is because it is slow enough to play like a turn based game, yet real time and fast enough that you have to think and make choices quickly.

so just like baldur's gate eh

It is not far off. But in BG you can pause and plan stuff ahead, in EQ it all moves constantly at the same pace. You just have to learn how to react in that time. And it eases you into it because you start with 2 spells and only get more every 4 levels.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

Regardless of your views on kiting, EQ was in no way worse off than modern games that have degenerated all the caster classes into glorified archer units who fling their own flavor of projectile. EverQuest at least had casters working other jobs as well, such as mezzing and charming. Back when those things were, you know, important to encounter design. Now it's all about muh DPS and DPS checks.

There was much more creativity because unlike modern games, were you cannot "exploit" the environment & AI, in EQ people were finding ways to solo much higher level mobs than originally intended for their level. E.g. splitting groups with careful Feign Death or pet pulling isn't just possible anymore with linked mobs.

Nor is it even necessary because everything just goes splat I am sure there are occasional tough dungeons in some games when people do super-heroic-whatevers. But last time I did a dungeon in Rift, I just pressed 12345 and watched fireballs and lightning bolts smash groups of mobs to death in 5 seconds.

The mob HP and fact that it was designed mostly as a group game, is one of the main things that made EQ so interesting. When you get in a bad situation, even as a group, and you are up against several mobs, you can't just splat one with a few button mashes. Nothing really goes splat, especially later in the game, so you really have to use smart tactics or people start dying. A basic move when you were up against too many mobs (yet not everyone was smart enough to do it), was to do something to deliberately aggro a mob, then run over to the corner of the room and Root it in place. Then the group can continue fighting but with 1 less mob. And even a Cleric could do this, you didn't have to be a typical control class to play smart.

I had some epic battles with a group of good players and it was the most amazing thing I've ever played. I've never seen anything like that ever since, because nothing matters anymore. People die and get battle rezzed which is just dumb, someone does a bad pull and they get turned into sheep, which is even more dumb, nobody can attack the sheep to wake them up, end up with too many mobs, you just unload your biggest spells and blast hell out of everything because mana is irrelevant and mana regen is basically instant after the fight. Etc... etc....

I'm playing EQ right now. A necro. In the ealry levels. And it's a lot liek what you say. I played a ranger originally. But anyway, i've noticed a lot of MMO's mudflate over time and this makes the lower to mid levels extremely popamole. Are you entirely sure you're not experiecing that? Have you played these newer MMO's to endgame to confirm they're this way?

I'll go into more depth about the mudflation. A lot of players understand veterans creating twinks and items rising in price as a result. This devaluing of currency leads to spending magnitudes more money for valuable things, especially hurting new players. We remember this because it's a possible affect and we tend to remember negative things better. But what many don't understand is mudflation is fundamentally the devaluing of thigns in the MMO. It's across the board. A weapon formerly of great value now has almost none, so a new player gets it for free as a gift. This means levels too. This means you blaze through the levels. This means mobs go SPLAT. This means you outlevel a quest before you even finish it. Developers will commonly make new zones with easy loots and fast leveling to level up new and returning players.

At the high levels these same MMO's tend to be much harder. Why do the MMO's mudflate? For various reasons. The biggest reason is progression. If no mudflation occured, it would takes years to reach high levels as a new player. The population is also top heavy. This fractures the population, creating a huge gap, especially hurting player interdependent MMO's. Increasignly faster leveling reduces the severity of these affects. You understand everytjing? I find most people don't but some do. It makes it hard because this is a huge issue but it's little understood.

I myself haven't palyed enough newer MMO's long enoguh to know. I have played EQ2 and DDO. That's about it. One thing I don't like about modern MMO's is hand holding. I hate that. Small amounts is ok. For example, putting the noob killing grounds near where the new player starts teh game. That's ok. Giving the new player some food is ok. It's the glowing paths and gps maps and radars that ****** me off. I like to do that on my own. The problem is everybody else usually expects you to use it to keep up with them. So while I can pretend those things aren't there, I end up being isolated. Result is I just don't play those MMO's. Wurm Online works for me. When I initiially played it in 2012, it had no in-game map or radar. No glowing paths. No quest symbols. Almost nothing except the shirt I'm wearing and common sense.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

I otherwise agree on these core combat (or otherwise) mechanics:
1) tanking
2) healing
3) dps
4) crowd control (does this include see invis?)
5) utility (lock-picking, levitation, water breathing, other)

Why would a MMO wnat less? That's not fun.

There's much more to EQ than that though. I think it's a larger issue of how a MMO balances the players. For example, monks can't hold very much without it worsening their AC. This is distinctly different from other clases, whom only suffer an AC penalty when they're encumbered. This is what I'd call a blurry form of balancing. Another example might be giving a class the ability to root or snare as a boost. How do you measure that, versus giving them dps or tanking ability? What about bind affinity. If a class has that, how much power is that? There're MANY example of this sort of blurry balancing in EQ. I think designers try to avoid it because they want to see numbers. If there're no numbers, how do you balance it accurately? And yet it's this blurry balancing that's so fun for players to figure out and exploit.

I'd go so far to say my favorite feature in EQ are its twisty dungeons. I know it's confusing for some players, but they were always memorable to me. I love dungeons in any MMO. I don't like linear ones. Linear ones offer no longterm rewards. Complex dungeons can keep delivering long after you first enter them.

Nothing beats the feeling finding something new in a old dungeon.

Yet another thing is pathing. One of the itneresting things in EQ was some high levels mobs would wander in the zone, always keeping you on your feet. Now this can be unwelcome and end terribly, but otherwise it can break the rinse/repeat cycle that sometimes develops. I much prefer this. Also the weird pathing in some zones could be exploited. You could get off severla archery shots if you used it right.

 

[anvi]

I'm playing EQ right now. A necro. In the ealry levels. And it's a lot liek what you say. I played a ranger originally. But anyway, i've noticed a lot of MMO's mudflate over time and this makes the lower to mid levels extremely popamole. Are you entirely sure you're not experiecing that? Have you played these newer MMO's to endgame to confirm they're this way?

Well mudflation is only related to gear and cash. An expansion comes along and what used to be the best sword in the game is now worthless, so people give it to newbies. It ruins the game. Modern EQ is nothing like old EQ because they have changed so much of the game to be easier like WoW, the nearest you can get would be to play on P99, but even that has bad inflation issues. Generous people will often give a few hundred plat to a newbie to help them out, but this is ruining a big part of the game, which was building up from nothing. In the early days, having 1 plat was a big deal because you could buy some food and a backpack. But with inflation people will give you 500p without even thinking about it which is a massive amount of money.

As for the dumber modern games, that isn't mudflation because it happens even without any gear or money from anyone. In all of those games you go through "newbie areas" doing "newbie quests" and it is all designed to be easy. You get gear and upgrades just by doing basic quests, all the mobs die easily, and all the mobs are non-attack-on-sight. So you can walk amongst them and pick them off like a shooting gallery.

EQ was not like that, you were dumped into the real world at level 1. A single mob could kill you, there was social aggro so you fight a bat and a nearby bat would try to protect his buddy and you would get swarmed. There were enemies that would attack you on sight, even at level 1, and even deadlier, there were high level enemies that used to roam through the starter areas looking for newbies to kill. So if you didn't watch your back you would get 1 shotted to death by an orc several levels higher than you. None of that happens anymore. Add in the fact that there are no fizzles, no resists, and no mana management issues, and it just a joke now. And it was like that at release of these games too, long before any inflation could make it even easier. And yep I reached high level in some of them and they were no better. I have a level 58 Mage in Rift (out of 60 levels) and I can kill quest mobs before they even touch me. I target it, I press 12345 and the thing is blown to pieces before it can even lay a single hit on me.

 

[Delterius]

That said, the only wow class that really approached an eq enchanter was the warlock, especially when specced affliction. I mained one in vanilla and BC, and I remember cc'ing / kiting up to 4 or even 5 mobs at a time in shadow labyrinth and magister's terrace:

And even so, a lot of these options were required from other classes. Good Hunters could walk rounds around mobs and keep them occupied, Mages could keep Polymorph going for an entire fight and Priests had Shackle Undead and Mind Control.

WoW is a really uneven experience overall. Some expansions, like WotLK, shunned CC altogether. Cataclysm tried bringing it back and accomplished it for the most for part. But the whole thing was gutted compared to Vanilla and TBC.

 

[Aildrik]

Speaking of mudflation, one of the most frustrating things about EQ, even going into Velious, was you really couldn't twink casters If you gave a L1 caster an Oracle robe, it looked cool and might give a larger mana pool but did nothing for your damage output. Giving a L1 warrior nice armor and weapons made a night and day difference. There were even a few hard to come by weapons in Velious that would proc at L1 with pretty comical results.