05-10-2003, 11:36 AM
There are pro and cons to nerfing XP past 70.
As of now, due to large and extremely easy to get amounts of experience, it's very easy (if a bit tedious past 85) to level (even without including pure leeching). This means that it's perhaps a bit too easy to get an extremely powerful character, as far as skills and stats are concerned. So nerfing XP will force people to make trade-offs for their character builds. A few examples :
- nearly all barbarians have maxed Battle Orders, maxed Mastery, at least one attack skill maxed, and good levels of Natural resistance/Stone Skin/Shout...
- all sorcs have at least two trees with one maxed skill and maxed mastery, plus a few "utility skills" (Static Field, Telekinesis...)
- assassins can have maxed Claw Mastery, one or two maxed Martial Arts skills, one maxed trap...
- paladins have one maxed aura (Fanaticism is very popular), maxed Vengeance, maxed Holy Shield.
So in a way, nerfing experience forces players to make trade-offs, and will increase build diversity and reduce the number of cookie-cutter characters. That's good.
The big problem I see coming is if Blizzard doesn't recalculate monster levels across the board. With nerfed experience, where level say 80 will be very hard to achieve, if all monsters are still Mlvl 90 past Act 3 Hell and are harder than now, then it will be hugely problematic for melee characters to play (and they already are "weak" when compared to ranged attackers and spellcasters). Of course, perhaps Blizz will have rebalanced things a bit, as far as the Mlvl/Clvl curve is concerned, which I hope so.
As of now, due to large and extremely easy to get amounts of experience, it's very easy (if a bit tedious past 85) to level (even without including pure leeching). This means that it's perhaps a bit too easy to get an extremely powerful character, as far as skills and stats are concerned. So nerfing XP will force people to make trade-offs for their character builds. A few examples :
- nearly all barbarians have maxed Battle Orders, maxed Mastery, at least one attack skill maxed, and good levels of Natural resistance/Stone Skin/Shout...
- all sorcs have at least two trees with one maxed skill and maxed mastery, plus a few "utility skills" (Static Field, Telekinesis...)
- assassins can have maxed Claw Mastery, one or two maxed Martial Arts skills, one maxed trap...
- paladins have one maxed aura (Fanaticism is very popular), maxed Vengeance, maxed Holy Shield.
So in a way, nerfing experience forces players to make trade-offs, and will increase build diversity and reduce the number of cookie-cutter characters. That's good.
The big problem I see coming is if Blizzard doesn't recalculate monster levels across the board. With nerfed experience, where level say 80 will be very hard to achieve, if all monsters are still Mlvl 90 past Act 3 Hell and are harder than now, then it will be hugely problematic for melee characters to play (and they already are "weak" when compared to ranged attackers and spellcasters). Of course, perhaps Blizz will have rebalanced things a bit, as far as the Mlvl/Clvl curve is concerned, which I hope so.