Good ideas here! As someone interested in game design, this thread holds a lot of useful ideas.
The main factor in any game should be fun. It's fun to do massive dmg to monsters, obviously, so everyone wants in on that. Since it's not fun if you don't feel just as good (or better then) the next guy, companies like SOE concentrate on having game balance between the classes. Where they err is in messing with basic assumptions and mechanics to try and make classes equal, instead of being creative.
Case in point: Fighters should do the most meelee dmg, obviously. That's what they do. The higher lvl they get, the tougher they should be. A 1st level fighter is a farmboy (or farmtroll) with a sword and armor. A 60th lvl fighter is a Warlord, veteran of 100s of battles, master of arms and mighty on the battlefield. A 2 handed greatsword, weilded by a huge fighter, should do massive dmg on a clean hit. In EQ2, scout classes do more damage per second (even though it's only from back or side, and only with special attacks). Does this make sense?
Yes and no. Obviously, attacks to vital points do massive dmg. get a dagger thrust into your throat from behind, you'll be dead. The same thing would happen if you get chopped in two by a greatsword, just a bit messier. Now, as far as sheer dmg goes, the fighter with the sword does much more dmg then the thief with the knife. However, the results are the same. When you add in factors like Armor, hardness of a creature's hide, ect, you can point to situations where either class has the advantage.
Ex 1: A tank and a thief are fighting a heavily armored warrior. The warrior has very strong armorand is a skilled warrior. Our mighty barbarian with greatsword keeps getting parried, and when he hits, the Warrior's uber armor is so strong, it can absorb much of the dmg. Luckily, the Warrior doesn't see the thief behind him, who finds a hole in the armor under the warrior's arm, and kills him with one blow.
Ex 2: Same barbarian and thief are in the deadly crypt. Skeletons, zombies, and other undeads charge at them from all sides. The barbarian's greatsword cleaves through the skellies 5 at a time, turning them into a pile of rubble. Meanwhile, the undead aren't fooled by the thief's stealth, and it's all he can do to parry them and keep them away. Even when he can get behind one, it doesn't matter, since the undead have no vital points. So the thief lets the barbarian clear out the undead, and disarms the terrible trap on the last casket.
In each example, one class had a clear advantage over the other. And in each example, the 2 classes work together. Balance doesn't mean making sure every class can solo as well as every other class, or nerfing sucessful combinations because they're "too good". Balance is about giving each calss a role, and many ways to fufil that role.
One problem is that scouts have a limited role in EQ2. They can open chests, track, stealth, evac, snare, do great DPS from behind, nad make people run faster. Opening chests is useful, but any soloer knows it's not vital. tracking is awesome IMHO, espically when you're looking for a named to pop, or the NPC for a quest, or for mobs to kill for a specific quest. Still, this is also not vital. Evac is great help, so is stealth and the run buff, but groups can get by without them. So we're left with high DPS, which has to be high to justify taking a scout. look at the other classes: Tanks take lots of dmg so everyone else lives. They hold aggro, can pull mobs off people, and do decent dmg. Vital for a group. Mages do supreme DPS, root, buff and debuff. Very useful. Healers... we know how vital they are. So what's a scout's role in MMORPGS if fighters tank and do good dmg, Healers heal, and wizzies DPS and buff?
A suggestion would be to expand thieves roles. Instead of putting their DPS to ridiculously high lvls and nerfing tank DPS, just make a few changes:
* Give thieves opportunity to do one hit kill from behind, % of success goes up with lvl, skilll put on timer or only used once a fight (since the monsters know you're there afterward) No need for high DPS.
* Give each thief class something desirable (Assasians get poisons, more kill attacks, better stealth. Rangers get uber bow skills, pet, some nature skills, traps. Bards get great buffs and debuffs, AoE sonic attacks, and a sampling of other things, like a few spells and lockpicking skills. Swashies get great parry/block, can parry enemy attacks into each other, and can improvise attacks using what's around them)
* Let thieves be thieves. Let them plant traps; lock and unlock things; steal from mobs, NPCs and players; have a chance of talking an incoming add into attacking your enemy instead; coating weapons, thiers and others, in poison; setting up ambushes; scouting out and area (possibly act like a ghost in SC, being a wizard's eyes so he can use a devestating long range blast on mobs the scout sees from hiding)
As it is now, it seems silly for thieves to out dmg fighters. it's more a failure of mechanics then anything else. Mind you, the game is very fun the way it is. And rangers do kill with the bow, and bards are sought after for their buffs. But a bard shouldn't be out damaging a tank. An Assasian, maybe, with poison. But a bard? nope. They get great skills and buffs, but should do more dmg then healer, less then tank.
I hope this adds something to the discussion, seeing as I'm a little cloudy headed as I write this, wanting to finish my thought before drifting off to sleep, where I fight ogres with my great axe. :)
And one last thing: A barbarian and a halfling aren't equal as tanks. A barbarian will do more dmg then a halfling, since he naturally has more strength. A halfling with equal strength does do equal dmg, true, but the strength is from armor, weapons and buffs, and that halfling is understood to be an exceptional member of his race. If both are in equal equip and equal buffs, Barbarian should do more dmg every time. True, halfling may not be far behind, but a 50th lvl halfling fighter should have just as much battle skill as a 50th lvl barbarian. But i DO think halfers shouldn't be allowed to use huge swords and axes, since they're just too awkward. I don't care how strong you are, if you're 3' tall trying to swing a 8' blade, it's going to be pretty difficult to hit anything. And it looks pretty funny.