Hunters vs Rangers, WoW vs EQ2

On a lark, I spent some time playing EQ2 this weekend, more for just a change of scenery than anything else. I played the original EQ (though not for very long and not very seriously), dropped it like a bad habit when WoW came out, and never looked back. Well, this weekend my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to take EQ2 for a test drive. I’d like to spend some time today talking about the different things I noticed between the two games.

The first character I rolled this weekend was a Dark Elf Wizard. In any RPG, I almost always play elves–dark ones if they’re available–and so my choice of race was extremely easy. I chose to play a Wizard because I’m a big fan of just nuking the ever living hell out of stuff (I get a big kick out of just charging into stuff guns blazing), and I wanted to try something that was a little different for me. I wanted to step out of the “Hunter Box”, so to speak. So, I picked a Dark Elf Wizard, and leveled her to about 13. It was at that point that I started to realize I was a little bored and wanted to give something else a try. I gave in to the inevitable and rolled a Wood Elf Ranger.

It was about ten minutes into my second character that I realized something: it doesn’t matter what game I’m playing, I’m destined to play a Hunter.

On my Ranger, I had a lot more fun with just about every aspect of the game. I got her caught up to my Wizard in short order, and was pretty pleased with the switch.

But what the hell does all this have to do with WoW?

Well, if you spend five years playing one game almost exclusively for at least a couple hours every day, it’s inevitable that any game you pick up after that will be the subject of constant comparison in your mind. And so it was with EQ2. Everything I did in-game this weekend, I either consciously on unconsciously compared to my experiences in WoW, and in a lot of ways EQ2 did not come out of it looking all that shabby.

Hunters vs Rangers

One of the first things I exclaimed aloud while playing my Ranger this weekend (and no, I wasn’t just talking to myself, I was playing with a friend) was “YES! THIS is what I had always hoped Hunters would be, from day one!”

And, to a very large extent, that’s true. There are only a few aspects of the Ranger class that I’m not particularly thrilled with, at least in terms of “Gee, I wish Hunters were like this”, and that’s more related to the general game-play mechanics of EQ2 as opposed to the Ranger class specifically. (Basically, I’m not a huge fan of their version of the Talents system, although that could be largely due to the fact that my understanding of it is minimal at best at the moment.)

But I digress. For those of you who have never played EQ or EQ2, let me give you a brief run-down of how Rangers work.

Stealth

First, Rangers can Stealth. In combat, out of combat, doesn’t matter–they can stealth. And using Stealth does not affect their movement speed adversely. I spent quite a fair amount of time running around Stealthed for no other reason than I could and there was no reason not to. I even used Stealth for it’s intended purpose, scouting ahead through enemy territory to find quest objectives more easily. I know, it’s pure insanity.

Melee

Second, Rangers are good at melee combat. My first fledgling steps into the Faydark, I stayed in ranged combat. Because that’s what I was used to, and over the past five years it had been indelibly programmed into the deepest recesses of my brain that melee = bad. But, as is so often the case, curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to see what this baby could do. So I took a few tentative steps forward, testing the waters, and whacked at some stuff with my axes. And it felt good. It felt right. I found that, at least in the early levels (I can’t speak to performance at later levels, yet), Rangers perform just as well–if not better!–in melee combat as they do in ranged combat.

And that’s when I decided Rangers are everything I had hoped Hunters would be.

The rest of the class differences I noticed faded to insignificance next to this jarring and glorious discovery.

Rangers in EQ2 are exactly what you would expect them to be, if you’re the type of person that reads a lot of fantasy literature. They excel at scouting out terrain, slipping into combat unnoticed, carving up their enemies efficiently in both ranged and melee combat. They’re versatile. They’re quick, they’re agile.

They completely lack the Hunter’s fatal flaw: complete ineptitude in melee combat.

The Rotation

Let me break down my usual rotation that I was using on my Ranger so you can get a better idea of why I was so amazed.

First, I would enter combat from Stealth with an ability that was akin to a Rogue’s Backstab (without the cumbersome weapon-type requirements). Then I would use another two Rogue-like abilities to deal some heavy damage in melee range (since I was already there). From there, I would either use another Rogue-like ability that would simultaneously deal significant damage and toss me back into Stealth so I could start the rotation over again, or if the target was facing me, I would snare it, step back into ranged combat, fire off a couple shots (of which there are few to choose from at low levels), and then close in again to repeat the process.

So, the rotation breaks down something like this:

• Melee attack from Stealth
• Melee attack
• Melee attack
• If flanking enemy, another melee attack (and start the rotation over again)
• If facing enemy, snare and step back to range
• Ranged attack
• Ranged attack
• Rinse and repeat

Nearly equal time spent in melee and ranged combat, both are equally effective, lots of moving around.

It was a dream come true. There was no point in time where I was standing still, yawning and spacing out or watching tv while I mindlessly poked the same few buttons over and over again. I was constantly doing stuff. And the fact that I was equally viable in either melee or ranged combat meant I had a lot more options available to me. What if I ran out of arrows? No problem, melee combat. What if the terrain didn’t allow distance between me and the target? No problem, melee combat. What if the target was pooping out all kinds of localized AoE damage? No problem, back to ranged combat. What if I needed to pull one target from a group of several? No problem, ranged combat.

Talents

As I’ve already touched on briefly, the one aspect of the game where EQ2 seemed to fall flat was their talent system. Now, I’m willing to concede that perhaps my feelings on that system are colored by my inexperience or lack of understanding. It’s entirely possible; in fact, probable. But the fact remains that I wasn’t particularly impressed.

The talent system in EQ2 is a lot less intuitive than WoW’s version. While there are clearly delineated paths which you might follow to excel at this or that aspect of combat, it’s unclear, at first, second and fifth glance, why you would want to. By reading WoW talent tooltips, you can easily figure out things like, “Oh, this talent would give me more health and mitigation and therefore make me better at tanking” or “This talent would increase my spell power making it easier for me to heal or deal damage”. The benefits are easily discernible. Not so with EQ2.

Now, I will argue that part of the fun in a game (at least for me) is having to figure that kind of stuff out. However, I want to be able to read tooltips and come out of it having at least a vague idea of why something would be beneficial to me or what specific aspect of play they’ll improve for me. For example, take the Hunter talent trees: Beast Mastery, Marksmanship and Survival. The names of the trees alone give you a basic idea of what type of game-play they favor. If you really like your pet, Beast Mastery is probably a good option for you. If you’re a big fan of just blasting stuff in the face and damn the consequences, well, Marksmanship is probably your thing. If you want to be a bit of a Jack of All Trades, Survival’s probably a decent choice. My point is, the very names of the trees themselves speak to the kind of play-style they’ll enhance. With EQ2, it’s more like… well, let me just show you instead:

And the tooltips aren’t much more enlightening than that image is.

I’m sure this is a problem that a little experience and some guess-and-check will solve, but I’m not that committed to the game yet and so I’m still in that “I have no idea what the hell this is all about” phase.

WoW vs EQ2

While, by and large, the Ranger class seems to blow Hunters right out of the water, a comparison of the two games overall tells a bit of a different story.

Graphics

First, EQ2 lacks the visual polish and shine that WoW is famous for. The interface is distinctly “blah” by comparison. For example, the minimap in EQ2 is a pixelated and ugly affair. Your character is represented by a red arrow and your group members are shown as blue dots that, frankly, a 5th-grader could have produced. The attention to detail here is distinctly lacking, which is something Blizzard is extremely well-known for excelling at.

The graphics in the game (keeping in mind that EQ2 is a fairly old title at this point) leave something to be desired. While the world itself looks rich and engaging, as I mentioned, there’s certain attention to detail that the game lacks, and after playing WoW for several years, it’s a difference you can’t help but notice again and again.

The armor and weapons were another aspect of this difference that was marked enough for me to comment on aloud as I played. In EQ2′s favor, the armor sets look realistic. Which is to say, you won’t find any Plate bikinis here. Everything looks practical and efficient, as if your characters were real beings seeking items that put function over form. However, the drawback to this is that, as a result, there’s very little variation in how different items look–basically every item I picked up was simply a re-color of the item I had before that, which is a bit visually boring after a while.

Community

Another major difference I noticed between EQ2 and WoW was the community. As I worked my way through the starting zone, chatter in general chat was steady which, in itself, was not unusual. However, it was the quality, not the quantity, of discourse that amazed me.

People asked questions in chat. A lot. People would ask how to find this or that NPC, how crafting and research worked; all manner of game-related questions were asked. And for each of those questions, there was a polite and helpful answer. There was no snark. There was no “lrn2play, noob!” There was mutual respect and appreciation. People asked questions, got answers, and thanked those that helped them. And it happened over and over and over again.

And, of course, there was also the usual chit-chat going on. But there were no mentions of Chuck Norris. There were no “your mama” jokes. There were no insults flying, no crude and borderline-offensive comments. People behaved like adults. And furthermore, everyone seemed to really know and mostly like each other.

At one point while I was on, a guild must have been raiding because periodically server-wide announcements were made that this person or that person had looted some “phat loot”. The general response from the community? A stream of “Grats!!” the likes of which you never could have dreamed of in WoW. No “Scrubs!”, no “Noobs!”, no “We totally got that last week” or anything of the sort. Just a communal outpouring of support and congratulations.

I was in awe.

And it was at that point that I said, “You know, this game may lack a lot of the polish that WoW has, but I think that right there just made up for it. Big time.”

EQ2 will never be a “WoW-killer”. If it was, it would already have done so. But, for people looking for a more grass-roots gaming experience that will take you back to the “good old days”, EQ2 is just the breath of fresh air you’re looking for, and I think the biggest contributing factor to that is the (comparatively) very small community within the game.

Will I give up WoW for EQ2? Absolutely not. I love WoW, despite it’s flaws. But, will I keep playing EQ2? Very probably. It reminds me of the time when I first started playing WoW, when the community was made up almost entirely of EQ converts and General Chat was more helpful and players in general were a kinder breed. And that’s a really good feeling.

WoW got a lot of things right (thanks in large part to Jeff Kaplan–an EQ convert), but one thing they just can’t replicate is the tight-knit community that EQ and EQ2 have fostered. While I congratulate Blizzard on the smashing success of WoW and don’t begrudge them a dime, I can’t help but feel that if it hadn’t been such a roaring success, we might still enjoy that communal bond that still lives within EQ2, and I grieve the loss. It was that feeling of community, early on, that really made the game a fun experience.