So it's disappointing to see that you are this far into development and something as fundamental as just basic damage output is not done correctly.
#1. No class is putting out the kind of damage output as in Live. We are not there yet. We are not "This far into development". We are in a very early alpha state. If you hit an attack and numbers pop up on the mob, congratulations, it's working as it should.
#2. There is no such thing as "basic damage" in this game because there are so many factors involved in how much damage you're putting out. These factors could be buffs, gear, stats, attributes, etc. Not all classes have their buffs, attributes and skills factored in yet.
#3. Paladin damage in Live was awful, especially at the start. Source: I, too, played a Paladin.
Something is very wrong here and shouldn't be at this stage.
I'm trying to figure out at what nebulous stage you've pigeonholed us into to get this mad over a game still being rebuilt. Hint: We're no where near comparable to Live. Here's what you should be testing:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3002
Do keep in mind that right now you are not "playing VG". You are testing VGO. We are still in a state that needs testing. And actual damage numbers is not something you should be testing. Is it lower than other classes? Yes? Then maybe something is wrong with them. or something hasn't been set up for the one you're playing. This the reality of VGO and if you wish to test it, then you must accept that everything is in a super early state. If you give me the argument about how "You've been working on this for years" then I'm going to remind you that there is only six of us on the team, none of us work on it full time, all of us are volunteers that use our free time, and all you're doing is hitting buttons.
TLDR; Chill, we're still working on it.
I saw a developer post on this site stating this: "Entered on Dec 13, 2017 11:12 by Xinux - Paladin's did not get bonus damage from strength. The bonus was removed awhile before sunset." This is false. Even if this was true, how can you justify leaving in a system that is so clearly broken it makes a whole class pointless to play?
This is not false. You may have played for years but you didn't play enough apparently. At some point in the later stages of the game, the SOE/Daybreak devs realized that the Paladin class was doing way too much damage and finally gave the class a well needed nerfing. I played a raiding paladin for our guild and even I knew that the Paladin was super OP and needed a nerf. I also do recall how miserable paladin DPS was when I was trying to level it.
Regardless of how you feel about this, a lot of what we do goes through the client. The client does not recognize that the Paladin gets a str bonus. While the devs are able to actually give the Paladin a str bonus, IF THEY DID, it would never show up and display the numbers correctly on your character sheet because the CLIENT controls that, and we have no means of editing the client. So it's been somewhat of a debate of if we should leave it like Live did it (Which is what the majority of us believe for the majority of these cases) or give Paladins their Str bonus and always display the incorrect information on the character sheet.
If the class is pointless for you to play, then try another one. But be warned, "at the stage we're at", it's not going to be fully fleshed out as Live VG either - no matter which one you pick.
You are welcome to make a proper bug report on this, but if the math is sound for the abilities, then they won't be changed, and you'll have to wait until we get the other stuff (stats, attributes, etc) working with it.