Feldon Interviews with the EQ2 team have been popping up everywhere, but while interviewing Dave Georgeson (EQ2 Senior Producer) would seem the obvious choice, EQ2Wire prefers to take the road less traveled. Although never officially announced, Xelgad has been appointed the go-to guy for Class Balance and Mechanics changes, filling the position hastily vacated by Aeralik last fall.
We submitted 11 questions to Xelgad and are thrilled to be able to share the results of that exchange. There have been some gameplay changes of late that haven’t had a lot of developer response on the forums, so for our first exclusive EQ2Wire interview, we’ve brought these issues to light, hoping to get some additional insight. While there are few revelations, the community benefits from hearing from someone who has such day-to-day input into EQ2’s gameplay are huge.
Eleven Questions for Xelgad
- EQ2Wire: What can you tell us about yourself? How long have you worked on EQ2? What classes do you play in EQ2?
- Xelgad: Me? I’m not really that interesting! I’ve been working on EverQuest II for about two years now. As for my classes, I play quite a few. I have multiple characters at 90 and lots more on their way to 90. I’m a bit of an alt-o-holic like many of our players. The classes I mainly play include Coercer, Ranger, Defiler, Monk and Warlock, though I have every single class leveled to some extent.
- Q: You picked up the reins of being the “class guy” with Sentinel’s Fate. Did you have a solid base to work from, or did you have to start from the ground up for this expansion?
- A: When I took over that mantle, the format for how the Sentinel’s Fate Alternate Advancements was already laid out. The vast majority of the abilities were not started. To answer your question, there was already a little foundation.
- Q: As players, we see one side of the equation, namely how certain classes excel in their jobs in raid and group situations, and other classes seem to fall behind. It must be challenging to have to consider any changes against itemization, AAs, and some of the more complicated procs. What’s your typical day like?
- A: I generally start my day by reading the forums. I read through all of the class forums for new posts, then Items and Equipment, General Gameplay and the new General Spells forum. Besides that, I work on whatever my current project is – Alternate Advancements, general class adjustments, etc. I check the forums periodically throughout the day for any new issues or bugs that may arrive and try to fix those along with any bugs sent to me from our QA Department.
- Q: Is it difficult to balance classes to be good in their roles across so many different playstyles? Because while a lot of feedback comes from raiders, there are also people who primarily group or solo to also be considered.
- A: We have many classes and a lot of things to consider with each class. In short: Yes, it’s pretty difficult. Like the previous question said, we have items, spells, advancements and interaction between other classes and all of these factors need to be considered. Difficult though it may be – it’s actually quite fun. Usually!
- Q: Sometimes it seems to players that class balance lags behind encounter design and itemization. When tweaking classes, do you keep an eye on new effects on gear, new raid encounters, etc. to make sure players have the tools they need to play the content?
- A: We do communicate internally. It’s not always easy to know how each encounter and item will work with each class though, so it’s rather difficult. I see most of the effects on items long before they make it to live servers and give input on how they affect classes. Encounter design is a little more difficult – I generally have a good idea about them, but the effects in encounters are many and varied.
Class Specifics
- Q: Can you comment about the recent changes to the Fury and Mystic mythical weapons? This was a 20-30% decrease in healing effectiveness. Thus far, there has been no developer comment on the subject. What were your your goals with this change?
- A: With the removal of the potency cap, it brought to light multiple balance issues with the previous effect on those mythical weapons and we had to adjust it down.
- Q: Prior to the Kunark expansion, Enchanters needed a lot of love. They had crowd control and power regeneration, but lacked survivability and group buffs. Since that time, they’ve seen steady gains and improvements, making Enchanters very desireable to play, and a must-have for groups and raids. WIth Sentinel’s Fate, the pendulum seems to have swung the other way. What role do you think Enchanters should be serving for the remainder of this expansion and leading into the next one?
- A: Enchanters still have powerful buffs and power regeneration, along with the crowd control you’ve brought up. In a perfect world, we’d be bringing some more of their crowd control into raids and are looking into ways to do that. An enchanter is primarily a supporting class and it is unlikely that an enchanter will be able to compete with a Sorcerer or a Summoner for the damage parse.
- Q: I have to ask this because I’ve played a ranger in EQ2 since day one, and I’ve seen a lot of rangers comparing themselves to assassins lately and feeling that they’re coming up short. We heard some great ideas from you and Rothgar during the Sentinel’s Fate beta that would probably help out here. Are these tweaks still on the horizon?
- A: The reason that rangers have not seen tweaks to their class is because according to our investigation and data from other sources (including parses) there are rangers that are able to parse even with assassins. When their abilities are timed correctly, and standing in the correct range, rangers are a mighty force. Obviously gear and buffs play a factor as well. That isn’t to say that there will be no adjustments to rangers or mechanics that work differently for bows in the future.
Communication and the Future
- Q: As a player of EQ2, you must have some ideas for fixes or new content you’d like to see added. Have you championed for any of these ideas since you started working on EQ2?
- A: Most definitely. I enjoy grouping and raiding primarily, and do give feedback. I also love our lore and suggested a specific event be changed in the upcoming expansion. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what that was just yet. As far as fixes, I tend to get vocal when something in a group or raid doesn’t make sense or isn’t fun to me.
- Q: During Beta, you posted very detailed sticky threads that laid out your plans for each of the classes. Obviously if you responded to every concern expressed on the forums or in-game, you’d never have time to actually work. How much of the feedback that you read helps you to target areas that need work?
- A: I read and consider all feedback that gets posted on the forums. The forums are a good place for players to express their feelings about their classes and I can evaluate changes based on that feedback along with the data we collect from other sources.
- Q: No doubt we’ll hear more at Fan Faire, but what, if anything, can you tell us about the next game update and the expansion?
- A: You know I can’t say anything about that!
We’d like to thank Xelgad for spending some time with us. No doubt there will be Comments suggesting all the questions EQ2Wire should have asked. We’ll be saving up the best ones, and if the opportunity comes up for a follow up interview, you can bet we’ll try to get them answered!
Pretty much BS about Rangers, but everything else was interesting to read.
so what ranger anywhere is able to parse even with an assassin in comparable gear? seriously, give us a name or something because I seriously doubt that said character exists
A: The reason that rangers have not seen tweaks to their class is because according to our investigation and data from other sources (including parses) there are rangers that are able to parse even with assassins. When their abilities are timed correctly, and standing in the correct range, rangers are a mighty force. Obviously gear and buffs play a factor as well. That isn’t to say that there will be no adjustments to rangers or mechanics that work differently for bows in the future.
How the f*ck can he say that???????????? Does he even look at assassin parses??? There is no way this is true. He needs to post these “parses/data”. How in the hell can he say that when assassins are near 400k with assassinate hits?
First, wow! Sorry rangers =\
Now my stuff “With the removal of the potency cap, it brought to light multiple balance issues with the previous effect on those mythical weapons and we had to adjust it down.”
Essentially this effected what percentage of those classes? The top 10%? Top 5%? The casuals basically catch the nerf? Seems like there should be some way to find a happy medium here.
Mystics healed for less than defilers before the mythical got savaged (again) there wasn’t any balance problem to start with, just a huge increase in imbalance.
For the rangers, I’m sorry, yes maybe a very few of you can parse good numbers, but when I’m building a group, or a x2 raid, I’m still far less likely to be excited at the prospect of an unknown ranger, most aren’t good dps, and bring nothing to the group apart from dps (but often seem to have lots of macros about attack chickens and so on).
Good interview, very disappointing answers though.
I’m not sure if he compared endgame Rangers to endgame Assassins.
I wish he’d talked to endgame Rangers who betrayed to Assassin and saw their DPS double.
Interesting and it’s nice to have insight into the game from people developing it. I was curious about his comment that part of his daily routine was to read forums. At what point does customer feedback affect policy or game direction? I firmly believe customers who play tens of hours per week become more well versed with how the game mechanics/designs work then development does themselves. Its practical experience vs theory and developers just don’t have the bandwidth to test like the customer base does. Take rangers, what does it say when some of the brightest players (and vocal) of the class give up and move to assassins? They were high end and disheartened at their ability to contribute…what does that mean for the casual grouper/raider hoping to play the game? Battlegrounds I guess.
For all intesive purposes this was a dev brush off, he said that he plays a ranger, how is it possible that if he plays a ranger he cant see these problems himself? or is he one of those elite couple that know the exact pixel to stand on for distance, and the exact casting order timing to go with…… I was hoping for more of a realization that things were unbalanced, but then for near 10 years of my life playing everquest 1 and two as a ranger towards the end of the mainstream life of both games rangers come up short. over in eq 1 rangers are very diminished now a days as far as worth. and like someone said above, apologetically he would be hesitant to invite a ranger to raid or group cause most of them suck?.?
Lets face it TOR is coming out and Sony is gonna lose a lot of people to that game, why should the bother fixing broken classes when they wont have the subscription cash from all of those lost accounts.
my 2cp
They may read the forum, but I doubt they understand what they read. Just become “some” ranger can parse with “some” assassin…who cares?! Let’s see the parses across different experience and gear ranges. If the problem is the most uber gear, then why tweak the class mechanics…fix the gear!
Same goes for mystics. I’m unfortunately not one of those people who plays my mystic with people who have to worry about potency caps (we are all far below them). It seems that the absolute maximum equipped toon and BG players are starting to dominate class mechanics.
At least at fan faire I can see some of these guys first hand. Maybe a few comments about tweaking gear and encounters instead of class mechanics will get heard.
Btw: I play both a ranger and mystic…so I’m doubly ‘blessed’.
Good interview questions and answers but again i have to take issue with the ranger aspect. People who have loved and played the class (like me) have either hung up their bows and turned assassin or play alts now. The gap is ever widening I don’t see how anyone playing endgame could not acknowledge that. Even with the huge NOT imagined dps difference with assassins if the rangers had even some utility peopl;e might stay the course but they haven’t. It’s broken my heart really.
The comment re the detailed write up on each class from the dev during beta. Does anyone have a link to that. This is just the sort of thing I would love to read and somehow missed it.
I saved hundreds of threads from Beta. Not sure how best to put it online.
I have read EQ2Wire for months now, and never felt i needed to say anything about any comment..but the ranger issue is is one of those comments. i have played a ranger for 5 years as my main. and i can out parse all but a few assasins/wizzies on any given day. i can asure you that a ranger and a asassin in the same gear, same group makeup and the same skill lvl will NEVER parse the same. to say “if he stands in the right spot and use the spells correctly” is simply ignorant to the class…of corse a good ranger will do that. and a good assasin will do the same.
and the reason rangers are never in top end raid forces, they have nothing to add to the mix. if the ranger was THE top parser, sure..buff him, he is the man.. but if u can have an asassin, that has hate transfer and debuffs AND does alot more dps..uuum, no brainer. to make a ranger more atractive for raiding why not give him a permanent group buff or a transfer equal to the assasin.
i know no one from SOE will read this and say..”ya, i see now, ill look into that”. but it makes me feal better to say it. and truly i dont mind being second best dps, it gives me a goal to shoot for. but when ppl from SOE say a ranger is tier one dps and equal to an assasin, i must say something.
Ya, the ranger comment is BS ….
Is he just saying that after all this time… after all the effort, after all the hours spent studying parses, tweeking gear, casting order, etc etc… does he mean to say that we’re all just “Doing it wrong”
I parse vary well for a ranger personally … but I can’t help but feel that the odds are stacked against me …
For crying out loud we’re not looking for a sniper-shot that can one shot an EpicX4 mob, we’re just looking for a level playing field, and some “Raid Desirability”
umm ranger’s dont parse as high as assassins because if they did every1 would be a ranger… also rangers act and fight like they were designed for pvp… I.E. rangers get roots and snares that dont contribute to there dps whatsoever and the reasoning is that rangers kite PLAYERS in PLAYER VS PLAYER COMBAT duh ppl
Hey there Bercilak I am actually a ranger in your raid force. You posted the only honest reason I can come up with. This was posted a long time ago by the dev so hopfully he got fired and the new devs understand rangers can not keep up with assasins on the parse. That being said, rangers in open world pvp (the server Bercilak and I are on) Own everything everytime. Seriously a top end ranger never loses if they know how to use their snares, and stuns, its just never happens. If you made them more powerfull dmg wise it would be absurd. That being said only like 4% of the eq population plays on open world pvp and they have done manythings to let us know they dont give a fuck about us… so wtf.