EQ2 does solve the healing problem?

[jpark]

I think it did.

The time required is too great so my RL friends and I packed it in tonight - but we lead a guild for the past 2 months - 30 folks - average level 25.  Good time.

I was a level 27 templar - and from what I could see the game was successful in ensuring that healing was widely available among a number of different "priest" classes.  If groups needed a healer - they needed a tank just as often - the frequency seemed about the same.

So I have to give EQ2 credit on this point.  At the high end of EQ - things certainly headed this direction as well imo.

I don't want to start a second thread for this comment - but all the graphics aside - I thought the zones had less atmosphere than EQ (Halas, Butcherblock, unrest).  Odd.

[shiznitz]

One of the reasons the healer problem seems less than in EQ is the super-fast mana/health regen out of battle. I wouldn't be surprised if longer encounters later in the game will once again require specialists. Mana efficiency was critical even in EQ exp groups since waiting for the healer to regen mana was wasted time.

On the zone atomosphere, I have to agree with you on BB specifically comparing EQ and EQ2. Unrest is one of the best zones in any MMOG ever so I don't see that as a fair standard myself. I thought the Down Below > Qeynos catacombs, Antonica & Thundering Steppes > WK. Stormhold is meh.

As far as unique EQ2 content, if you can get a high teens group together, I highly recommend trying the non-Foul Wind Firemyst Gully adventure. Nothing like it in EQ. Only the groupleader needs to have comepleted the Lord Grimrot Scythe access auest to enter. There is no level limit (the level limit applies to Foul Wind instance only) but of you have anyone over level 20, lots of the stuff turns grey. The final boss is a giant skeleton 20^^ and the reward is great.

[HaemishM]

I thought the Down Below was one of the worst fucking zone designs ever, atmosphere included. It just stank of bad design.

[shiznitz]

Down Below has atomosphere, mob variety, somewhat confusing terrain, easy access, easy egress. Not anywhere as good as the undead zone off of EC that I am drawing a blank on, but still good.

[HaemishM]

Befallen, which had more atmosphere in its first 30 steps than Down Below did in its entirety. I just looked at it and thought, "Ew, dank sewer, I'm so scared."

[jpark]

The down below had to be the toughest zone I fought in - for the reasons mentioned above.

They did do a great job with Black Burrow though.  That is the only zone that left any memory.

[Strazos]

The down below had to be the toughest zone I fought in - for the reasons mentioned above.

They did do a great job with Black Burrow though.  That is the only zone that left any memory.

I went into the Down Below once for a quest (I was a Brigand), and refused to go back afterwards; it was horrible.

Also, about the healing....I think at times it was worse than EQ - I was in a lot of groups required 2 healers to survive, and this was not due to player (in)competence - Fallen Gate comes to mind. People crying about needing 2 healers, imo, Killed it for me.

[kaid]

In big nasty areas if you are fighting over your level having 2 healers in eq2 is while not neccessary is very helpful. The funny thing is this rarely poses any problems because it seems like healers are pretty popular in eq2. They get alot of good toys to play with and the targeting system is a HELL of a lot more friendly than most games WoW included.

That and unlike most games main healers as long as they are different flavors really do not step on eachothers toes at all. In my normal group we have a templar and a shaman. The shaman wards and debuffs the hell out of mobs and the templar does the main healing with their reactive heal. The combo of the two allows us to wade into some crazy areas and handle it well. Also they added some nice touchs like the rez item thing that if your priest gets wacked but not everybody in the group dies they can clicky rez the healer back in. It always sucks in other games if the healer dies they seem to always get shafted with the long run back.


kaid

[jpark]

In big nasty areas if you are fighting over your level having 2 healers in eq2 is while not neccessary is very helpful. The funny thing is this rarely poses any problems because it seems like healers are pretty popular in eq2. They get alot of good toys to play with and the targeting system is a HELL of a lot more friendly than most games WoW included.

That and unlike most games main healers as long as they are different flavors really do not step on eachothers toes at all. In my normal group we have a templar and a shaman. The shaman wards and debuffs the hell out of mobs and the templar does the main healing with their reactive heal. The combo of the two allows us to wade into some crazy areas and handle it well. Also they added some nice touchs like the rez item thing that if your priest gets wacked but not everybody in the group dies they can clicky rez the healer back in. It always sucks in other games if the healer dies they seem to always get shafted with the long run back.


kaid

Great comment.  My bud and I played 2 templars.  We knew from the beta boards 2 priests - especially with group death penalties - was the way to go.  In our experience we found 2 healers to be sorta expected for hard combats - and 3 healers even better (we could get 2 Templars to stack by focusing on different types of heals).

I found this "commoditized" healers though.  Part of the fun of healing is being the person that holds the group together in hard combats.  Now, with 2 sometimes 3 healers serving that role for exp grouping - your value as an individual contributor felt a bit diminished.

[Alkiera]

I found this "commoditized" healers though. Part of the fun of healing is being the person that holds the group together in hard combats. Now, with 2 sometimes 3 healers serving that role for exp grouping - your value as an individual contributor felt a bit diminished.

Yes, clerics are no longer the single god-like character...  I think this is what the first poster meant.  In EQ1, and in other similar games, you are tied to your healer, and without some member of that class, you're nearly useless.  In EQ2, any derivative of the priest archetype is acceptable in most cases.  If you need 2 healers, any 2 healers will do, tho ideally 2 different ones are preferred.

Alkiera

[jpark]

I found this "commoditized" healers though. Part of the fun of healing is being the person that holds the group together in hard combats. Now, with 2 sometimes 3 healers serving that role for exp grouping - your value as an individual contributor felt a bit diminished.

Yes, clerics are no longer the single god-like character...  I think this is what the first poster meant.  In EQ1, and in other similar games, you are tied to your healer, and without some member of that class, you're nearly useless.  In EQ2, any derivative of the priest archetype is acceptable in most cases.  If you need 2 healers, any 2 healers will do, tho ideally 2 different ones are preferred.

Alkiera

Is this progress to you?  I am not sure.  More classes can heal in EQ2 - but you need far more healing (e.g. 2 healers or more).  Healing is not a popular function - even among those who are priests.  Needing twice the number of people to provide healing that was seen in EQ gives less incentive to fullfill this role.

[Alkiera]

Hrm.  Odd.  An admittedly non-scientific study, but examining the population of zones by archetype, on my server, Guk, results in these proportions..

For every mage, there are approximately 2 scouts, 4 fighters, and 4 priests.  That would make healers among the most popular archetypes to play.

Also, 2 healers are no more 'required' than having 2 scouts, or 2 fighters, or 2 mages.  The fact that 1 healer is still required for most group mobs is still a bit disappointing, but at least the varying types of healers and the idea that they are equally effective has increased their numbers.

Alkiera

[jpark]

Hrm.  Odd.  An admittedly non-scientific study, but examining the population of zones by archetype, on my server, Guk, results in these proportions..

For every mage, there are approximately 2 scouts, 4 fighters, and 4 priests.  That would make healers among the most popular archetypes to play.

Also, 2 healers are no more 'required' than having 2 scouts, or 2 fighters, or 2 mages.  The fact that 1 healer is still required for most group mobs is still a bit disappointing, but at least the varying types of healers and the idea that they are equally effective has increased their numbers.

Alkiera

There are many reasons priests are "popular" to play.  If you look at EQ and add the class of druid to cleric - combining the two would be a pretty "popular class".  In EQ2 "priest" includes a lot of classes of course - druid being one of them.

On the 2 healer issue we will have to agree to disagree.  At level 27 my experience was that 2 healers was generally necessary - you could fight with one - but the healing was a bit weak (I was a Templar) and with group exp death penalties there is a lot of incentive to have insurance.

You have continued to play this game so maybe things have changed since I was there in December.

[shiznitz]

The issue driving the need for 2 healers is the timers on spells more than the mana (or "power" in EQ2.)  SOE should ease up on the timer lengths for heals. This would let a single priest be more effective/ SOE has created a mini-version of the complete heal chain from EQ1.

[Alkiera]

I admit, my SK is only 26.  Sometimes, my group has 2 healers, sometimes it does not.  It's certainly nice when the excrement hits the rotary impeller...  but not required.  You can often move faster, more safely, etc, with 2 healers... but if you're a bit more cautious, 1 is fine.

Alkiera

[jpark]

The issue driving the need for 2 healers is the timers on spells more than the mana (or "power" in EQ2.)  SOE should ease up on the timer lengths for heals. This would let a single priest be more effective/ SOE has created a mini-version of the complete heal chain from EQ1.

Good insight.  The problem was not mana - but power.  You're right.  I tight situations getting enough healing was a real problem.  There were some big heals that could help - but they had huge timers on them.

[kaid]

Lack of quick casting big heals deffinatly does help slant things towards the two healer mode but another reason is two healers stack so well together. When you combine a ward casting shaman with a reactive heal templar you can take on some crazy fights safely. In most games if you have more than one healer one does 90% of the healing and the other is left for emergancies or just spinning their wheels. In eq2 you can have two healers working in tandem and not get in eachothers way while also freeing up their mana to nuke, dot, debuff the enemy and trust me priests in eq2 have some seriously nice debuffs.


kaid

[Strazos]

Well, I played on Crushbone....there always seemed to be a huge deficit of priests of any type. Heck, I was usually the only scout in my party. I mostly saw a Ton of fighter-types, and a bunch of soloing mages (but never a chanter when ya need one).

I refuse to sit around for more than a half hour waiting to get just 1 or two people....that was one thing about CoH; you could go in with just about anything (save TF's).

In the end, EQ2, for me, turned out to be almost the same thing as EQ: you end up waiting around for long stretches of time either LFG or waiting to find one particular class. Then, once you've assembled, you either make your way to a "camp" and repeatedly roll through mobs for hours, or you break cause some fucktard screws up either on the way there or in battle.

[jpark]

In the end, EQ2, for me, turned out to be almost the same thing as EQ: you end up waiting around for long stretches of time either LFG or waiting to find one particular class. Then, once you've assembled, you either make your way to a "camp" and repeatedly roll through mobs for hours, or you break cause some fucktard screws up either on the way there or in battle.

That's another reason why priests are popular.  I played a fighter in EQ - learned my lesson.  If you heal you're never LFG.

[kaid]

Man you must just be unlucky. I am on crushbone and it is not uncommon for us to have 3 healers in our groups due to how many druids and templars are running around. From what I have seen warriors and priest types seem the most common followed by casters and lagging way back rogues.

kaid

[jpark]

Man you must just be unlucky. I am on crushbone and it is not uncommon for us to have 3 healers in our groups due to how many druids and templars are running around. From what I have seen warriors and priest types seem the most common followed by casters and lagging way back rogues.

kaid

Yup.  And you can bet the difficulty of scenarios will eventually demand that kind of healing as a pre-requisite.

[shiznitz]

I am somewhat surprised by the lack of scouts too. I play a bezerker since I played a ranger for 4 years in EQ1 and wanted to be a tank, but the scout abilities seem cool to me. They used to be the kings of DPS until wizards and warlocks got buffed nicely this patch (maybe its only on test...). I also noticed that Rangers get a lot of archery special attacks that require 1) stepping out of melee to use and 2) spending a nice chunk of money on appropriate quality arrows.

EQ2 definitely made the healer classes much more enjoyable than in previous games, though. If I had time for an alt, that is what I would make and I have NEVER been a healer in any game ever.

[kaid]

Hehe we don't take 3 healers because we need that much healing infact it is silly how safe we are with all three. Its just a matter that over half the people I know playing eq2 picked healers this time around. It is really freaking weird because none of them ever normally play healers but in eq2 they do it and seem to enjoy it.

My groups are not to picky about group composition if we have a healer of any type and a tank of some flavor we can roll with anybody else who cares to join us. We have had some pretty weird mixes but it all seems to work as long as you can cover the basic bases.

For a really well oiled group though you want to have a fighter of some sort a healer, a mage and a rogue. Gives you the basic tanking and surviving stuff while giving you good dps to mow through mobs. Anything else on top of that is butter.

Hell though I have gone into dungeons with no healers and 5 fighter types and myself a conj and we did fine. It was a bit scary but it was just a matter of them learning to gain and lose agro and we went really deep into stormhold with that freak assed group. Admittedly two of the 5 were crusaders so they had a tiny bit of healing potential but mostly it was a matter of agro shifting and using the taking hits for others powers.


kaid

[Sky]

I used to love 'ragtag' groups in EQ (ie: no unholy trinity). My regular permafrost group was a monk (me), a rogue, two paladins and a ranger, plus a pickup slot. We used to kick so much tail because we all knew how to play our characters and complement each other's abilities. We were known for cleaning up trains other groups caused as they ran for the zone border, even.

I came to terms years ago with the fact that disliking and avoiding the LCD will cause me a lot of grief through life and gaming. But I'll still gripe about it!