At 12:33 PM 2/26/01 -0700, you wrote:
>Only double the percentage of non-anon, non-rp bards on Xegony. Highly
>unlikely to be the same thing. You'll never see Kitasi pop up on a /who all
>bard on E'ci as I am always /roleplay. Also most of those people logged
>onto pvp servers are not engaging in pvp activities most of the time. The
>decision to balance anything because of pvp is one of Verant's most
>ludicrous ideas. Even if every single one of the people in your example was
>engaged in pvp when you took the sample they would still only constitute
>less than 7% of the people playing. Since that is 7% out of two possible
>choices it is an insignificant amount. 4% out of 14 possible choices on the
>other hand is not insignificant by comparison.
um wrong, common error. the 4% is out of 2000 people playing at the time.
the 7% was out of 38000 or so people playing at the time. percentages are
hard numbers if you relate them to the same or comparable things. In this
case both are related to the number of people playing at a specific time.
>Also yes bards may be less than 5% of the population on some servers. But,
>since you are taking a sub-part that is virtually guaranteed to be small in
>percentage your argument has no weight. If there were an equal number of
>every class in the populations then bards would still only number 7.14%
>(100/14). Given that fact, even 3% would be a very significant percentage
>since they would still number half as many as could be expected all else
>being equal.
no, we're talking about the big picture here. just because there are more choices
doesn't make one minority any less significant than another.
>Statistical analysis guarantees in fact that if a classes percentage falls
>below a certain threshold in relation to this equality, then that class is
>in fact underpowered or less enjoyable to play. If all the classes were
>equally balanced then the percentages of each across such a large base would
>be effectively equivalent to 100/14. The unmistakable fact that it is not
>is analytical proof that the classes were not balanced in terms of power
>level, usefulness, and enjoyability. Apparently someone at Verant finally
>realized this which is why we see so many intensive changes recently.
this has nothing to do with my point, which was that you cannot selectively disregard
small segments of the population in an mmorpg because EVERYONE is part of a small
segment of the population. just because it doesn't affect YOU doesn't mean it isn't
important.
>That's why I laugh whenever someone says that bards are overpowered. The
>statement is ludicrous on its very face. If that were true, in a game
>dominated by the mechanics of level advancement and ability to overpower
>foes, then there would be more than the flat (100/14)% bards. There are
>not. It is not because bards are some great secret either. Sure a lot of
>people don't know all that bards can do, but that is because it takes far,
>far more work to play a bard than any other class. Probably why I like
>them, they are much more challenging. Anybody can hit autoattack and the
>occasional taunt, bash, or kick hotkey.
>
> Kit
If a lot of people don't know all that bards can do, then a major reason there aren't more
bards would be ignorance, not some ''underpoweredness'' to the class. i agree that bards
are one of the harder classes to play to their fullest abilities, but that fact does not make
bards underpowered. when comparing classes, you should compare the fullest abilities
of class X with the fullest abilities of class Y. and those are 2 of the big reasons that bards
are underrepresented, 1. people don't know what bards can do, 2. the people who do know
what bards can do don't want to work that hard when they are playing a game.