It seems to me that the term Desirability is often misunderstood to the majority of the EverQuest community. As you can easily deduce, the word describes the amount of desire, or demand, for a class.
But why do we desire/demand certain classes over other classes? The question comes down to the effect of the class on the group's ability to win. Everything in EverQuest can be boiled down to one predominate factor, the desire to improve your character. How do you improve your character? You improve by winning.
The win, its what drives most players. Of course there are always those who think outside of the box, and focus their attention elsewhere, but the majority of the players want to win. Winning can be accomplished in all area's of EQ. From your first fights and quests, to the leveling process, to the high end raids. You want to win in everything that you do in EQ.
But you don't always win in EQ. Sometimes you lose, and it stings! How do you translate a lose in EQ? Usually translate to when you fail a mission, or die in game. Another way of losing is when someone else gets a win before you do. It's a common practise for the high end guilds to race to be the first winners of new events. And while everyone gets the same exact reward for a win on the same event, the first win is always worth bragging rights.... even if you are Triality (just joking!). I find many top end guilds worry more about being the first winners, than they worry about just winning a fight. And of course, there is always the petty bickering that you'll see as one guild claims another guild exploited an event, or they use haxxx, or they had help from a dev... but that's really all about ego and face, and is mostly for show.
Now, back to class desire. Why do we desire some classes and not desire others? Well, since EverQuest is a group/raid based game, players will naturally start to consider how to maximize their wins. Think of it a Wins vs Loses, and naturally, players will seek the classes that they believe, from experience, will lead them to a better win:lose ratio. This all started a very long time ago, and the argument, "Your class is better than mine" became very popular. Why? Because the dev team pretends that they want the classes to all have about the same level of desire. Of course it is impossible to ever really balance the classes. Instead, what started was a 8 year long battle over who is the best and who is the worst. It's a constantly shifting process.
Take the berserker class. This class was a rushed experiment of advertising and stolen warrior class ideas. The dev team took a template from the warrior class, changed kick to frenzy, and then removed all the defensive ability of warrior, and added a few odd throwing skills. Nothing worked at first, so you basically had a crappy warrior who was stuck in chain armor and forced to use 2handed weapons. Berserker desirability sucked, no one wanted them in groups, no one wanted them in raids, no one wanted the class period (most rangers still are under this sentiment). So for the first 6 months of their existence berserkers were screwed... very few actually made it to the end game raiding, and the ones that did make it were mocked to the point of quitting. Thankfully, due to some strong community movement, the dev team was forced to take action on the class. With the release of the next expansion, Rashere was able to improve the berserker class to the point of where they had some demand. A few more expansion later and a few more key upgrades, all the sudden we start to hear the Cinderella story that is the berserker class. But this also shows how important the community was in the development/balance/tuning of a class.
So, now that we see how a class can go from low demand to high demand, you should start to understand why it is soo important to watch out for the classes with low demand. Druids and Beastlords are the two classes that I believe are in the lowest demand right now.
Druids are stuck in between healers and nukers... or at least that what it seems to me. Of course, if druids improve in healing, then the clerics throw a fit and say that druids have all this "utility" and "dps" that clerics don't have (which is total BS). Or if you go the other way and give druids better DPS ability, then you have classes like mages and wizards complaining that druids get nukes AND heals AND cures... its a really tricky path. If it were up to me, I'd give druids a form of Div. Arb and a group RGC type of ability and call it settled... but, alas, SOE doesn't see fit in hiring a troll.
Beastlords suffer from a similar problem. It's a hybrid class that is 1 part mage, 1 part shaman, and 1 part monk. Sadly, the beastlords get nothing special out of any of it's parent classes. You are left with the weakest melee, weakest slower, and weakest pet. And of course, in the raiding world there is a huge problem with Pet classes, due to the way raid npc's tend to have AE rampage abilities that WTFPWN the pets. Some would say the beastlord's paragon of spirit line of AA are what makes the class... but I truthfully don't believe that argument.
What it all boils down to, why would you want a beastlord when you could just as easily have a shaman (better buffs/healing/curing/dps) or a real dps (mnk or ranger)? Why would you want a druid when you could bring a cleric, shaman, or wizard instead? Does the overlap in ability justify the lack of power in the classes? Do the very few useful abilities of these classes make them worthy? I say NO!
There is a really long post on EQLive about this very same topic: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=106581
Its about 15 pages long, and is mostly full of wasted space. There are a few good posts in there that can really help the average EQ'r understand desirability/demand. I suggest taking a look at the post... but only if you can filter out the crap posts from the real board trolls.
I'll be discussing Class Balance a lot here on Feeding the Troll. I feel it is really something that the community needs to hear about, and also, I'd like to be able to post opinions here without worrying that the Halflings will edit what I say. Hopefully we will see some resolution show up for these 2 leather based hybrid classes, and hopefully it won't take two years. Heck, I hope EQ lasts long enough to really take a good look at class balance!
Anyways, check back later, I should post one more article today!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I think the way you look at this is exactly what you said. "Why not take a shaman over a Beast?' They do have their para but is that their role?
I differ regarding druids. The defining thing about a druid is they can switch back and forth between roles. Than in itself is valuable.
The Rogue is the easiest to replace with a Beserker or Monk. You will get more DPS and other abilities.
I know I'm a little late to the party, but let me throw my two cents in on this topic.
I think the whole idea of class desirability is a crock. When EQ first came out, class desirability was non-existent. The game even told you at character creation that some classes weren't very desired in groups. The whole idea of balance came about later, and, like you said, it's something that will never be achieved. The grass is always greener...
WoW set out to balance classes from the beginning, and it has to be one of the most bland, boring games I've ever played. But, hey, at least you're wanted, right? =p
Anyway, I know balance is necessary due to the direction the game has taken, but class balance in EQ has just been tacked on to a game that was never meant to have it.
Post a Comment