well i wanted to start this thread to toss some questions around.
Fisrt thing i have seen that i dont fully understand is, where the preview site says "melle and ranged combat changes will redifine when and how you engage your enemy". Does this mean its changing to more of a positional attack system like WOW?

from the translated patch notes that i read the new systems works as following. any ranged attacker will "loose" attack power, the closer he is to his oponent. so archers will need to kite to do real damage now and can not stand and shoot while spamming pots anymore. i understand it as a change to a more D&D style rules set, where ranged classes also are less efective when they are up and personal with their enemies and need to keep their distance. so archers will get into more troubles if you catch them in MOS or similar places.

i havent seen anything reported about a more positional fighting style like in DAoC (later copied in WoW)expect the normal dagger moves that tend to land better from behind.

so i would read that preview more in the mind that melees will have a definit advantage in all spaces where cover is available to close in, where ranged classes will prefer to stay in wide open spaces. that might be a fun change to the system of today where its simply an equation of how many pots you can carry and if your oponents stun/para lands or not.

well, i dont realy understand what that means for melle.

Could be for melee they're doing a system where attacks land more often from behind or the side?

I know in WoW you can't parry or block attacks from behind (meaning rogues are even more bastardish), perhaps they're moving to a system similar to that to prevent pvp becoming a stale "stand there hitting, using specials and chugging pots" affair.

I think this would affect pve more than pvp. I doubt it would make much of a difference for a gladi mashing on an sps if he kills him two swings faster.

actualy i disagree. if the ranged classes can not just stand there and hope to outdamage me in melee range, they will have to start moving more. which gives them less time to dish out damage and gives fast moving melee classes a chance to go in and do their damage.

besides, what more could a dagger want than an archer/mage that needs to turn his back on the dagger to try and get to range to start doing damage again.

Looks like this could be a nice nerf for bow classes who've been OP for too long.

Nerfing the most played class in the game? Nah, I don't think it's going to be that bad.

guitar:
Nerfing the most played class in the game? Nah, I don't think it's going to be that bad.

And why do you think they're the most played class in the game? That's right! they're overpowered.

SR probably outnumber most other classes 2 to 1 because they're the easiest to level. In fact, L2 is one of the few games I know where there actually are classes that are just useless. Paladins? Unnecessary. The only thing they're even remotely useful for is tanking baium. Abyss walker? Why play them when you could make a much better Plains Walker? Phantom Ranger? No point, go Silver ranger.

L2 is crying out for balance issues to be addressed, but the devs have done nothing.

my closest irl friends have all played l2 sense beta, and have recently spoke of a few things, most recently the rested xp bonus (another attempt at WOWing the game?) . I feel this could deminish the credibility both of current people in End game, and those who will now more easily reach it. For the people already at End game, it will deminish there acheivment ( id assume) due to people more easily or frequently reaching that same lvl. And it might have a simmilar effect for those reaching end game after Gracia, due to the Vets giving them a hard time about how " they did it the easy way" or something along those lines. I dont wanna get to ranty about it, but im sure you can see what im getting at.

i dont think that "rested xp" will actually make that much of a difference. we are still talking L2 here and to be fair, a lvling boost was needed. most players have at least one toon at a lvl they feel comfortable enough and might want to try something new/different. expecting them to lvl all the way to their 70s again without any other bonus than the ability to twink out the chars is probably a bad business model.

and about the "too easy" remark, isnt it allready this way today? dare to reach a compareable lvl than some of the current top players and you will hear the comments of the type of "oh nice botting skills", "how did you get here this fast, cheater" etc. it doesnt matter if you took 3 months or 3 years. start competing with the old bunch about their lvling spots, places in the olympiad and you will get marked down as an unlegit player, so who cares about their opinions anyway.

oh, and i think that today HE outnumber SR by a big margin. their passiv skill to carry more weight made them, together with better str and attack speed stats, everybodys FOTM favorite. SR where nice when the amount of stackable buffs was shorter and tatoos wheren't that common on players. but today their natural stat bonuses arent realy that sought after anymore.

SR probably outnumber most other classes 2 to 1 because they're the easiest to level. In fact, L2 is one of the few games I know where there actually are classes that are just useless. Paladins? Unnecessary. The only thing they're even remotely useful for is tanking baium. Abyss walker? Why play them when you could make a much better Plains Walker? Phantom Ranger? No point, go Silver ranger.

SR are hardly the most played or the most overpowered class. In fact, out of all the archers they are the weakest. Probably the only use for them would be to run people down and run around some hot spots looking for people on your KOS. And if you've never seen a good PR, you've never witnessed the term "glass cannon" in action.

Hey,
I'm starting from scratch so I think I may give the PTS a try. However, what's the bonus a completely new toon get in Garcia, or PTS in general? Better XP? Well, what about the toons after the PTS ends? Is it brought back to a server, choosing at our will or is it just ... gone with the PTS server? No point start working just to find yourself ripped off the time you spent on the new toon.

pts is just a test server to find bugs, you cant start a character there then bring it to live servers if thats what your asking. Just start on the live servers, gracia will be here soon anyway.