I've always played a bard since the dawn of time and have been affected by this at one point or another and I know other classes are hit even harder with the issue of buffs that don't stack. I was curious how everyone felt about this.
I personally would love to see all buffs stack so that way players don't have to figure out which buffs stack and which ones don't. It's a minor issue, especially later in game when everyone has a good clue which buffs don't stack with which buffs, but wouldn't it just be easier if there were no conflicts when it came to buffs?
I'm also curious as to how Pantheon will handle this situation...
Honestly, how long did it take to figure it out? Paladins and clerics shared the same line of buffs. Just like there were lines of mob names that you learned were shamans or wizards or necros etc, you knew which spells were part of which chain. I guess it was kind of a pain to know which strength buff would overwrite which, or which AC buffs would stack, but we figured it out. I don't think that's a good reason to make them all stack. Imo the reason to make more buff stack would be to increase the effectiveness of the classes that didn't have the highest end buffs, but there other ways that can be accomplished. And also, do we really want 20 buffs in a pickup group? Raid buffing was one of my least favorite things.
I didn't mind having buffs that didn't stack, It made sense to me that you couldn't have all the buffs on you at the same time. If certain classes share spell lines, like Krixus was saying, then the same spells in a spell line shouldn't stack.
Krixus, I also hated raid buffing. It seemed to take hours sometimes.
Buffs in EQ were extremely strong, and I'd like to see that same thing in Pantheon, but having buffs not stack is critical when buffs are as strong as they were in EQ. Maybe if you mean having all buffs stack, but only the strongest one actually give effect, that I could see making sense.
As for raid buffing, I definitely thought it was a PITA too, a solution for that may be to give players better control of their spells, better macros. So if I'm a shaman and I get a tell for some buffs, I can press "Melee buffs" hotkey and it queues up the kit for melees, without having to micro every spell. This was sort of possible in EQ, but it was very limited. I do hope however that they don't remove the mana cost for buffs, or make them too easily distributed, buffs are a powerful thing and should not be cast without serious resource costs.
As a fan of paladin/crusader classes, I hope hybrids won't necessarily share buff spell line with the "parent" class. If 10-15% of what I bring to a group is buffs, I would expect this contribution to remain constant no matter what other classes join the group. Especially in the case of paladins where my buffs are supposed to make up for my reduced "natural" abilities.
I think all buffs should stack, just for the sake of simplicity.
As Mekada said, all it does is guarantee that your effectiveness as a whole is diminished if you're paired with another class that overwrites your buffs. Realistically, I don't think buffs should be as strong as they were in EQ, anyway. They should matter, but the strongest buffs of all should originate from dedicated support classes.
I'm also against long-duration timered buffs like EQ, honestly. Such a pain to micromanage all of that. I think EQ2 did it best, where some buffs are "permanent" and automatically apply to all group members within range, and last until toggled off. The exception being short duration (<2m) buffs that are used only during active combat. The system in EQ2 also had the Concentration system which meant that buff classes could only maintain a certain number of Concentration-related effects at a time.
Liav said:I think all buffs should stack, just for the sake of simplicity.
As Mekada said, all it does is guarantee that your effectiveness as a whole is diminished if you're paired with another class that overwrites your buffs. Realistically, I don't think buffs should be as strong as they were in EQ, anyway. They should matter, but the strongest buffs of all should originate from dedicated support classes.
I'm also against long-duration timered buffs like EQ, honestly. Such a pain to micromanage all of that. I think EQ2 did it best, where some buffs are "permanent" and automatically apply to all group members within range, and last until toggled off. The exception being short duration (<2m) buffs that are used only during active combat. The system in EQ2 also had the Concentration system which meant that buff classes could only maintain a certain number of Concentration-related effects at a time.
Exactly the opposite for me. I enjoyed managing buffs, and most of the buffs in EQ were long duration, so this wasnt a big deal. This was also a key gameplay element for classes that specialized in buffs, such as the EQ shaman. Keeping the puma line of melee proc buff up on your group was almost a full time job, but the net dps gain was incredible. This added a key element of gameplay for this class, and made a huge impact on your group.
I am very much in favor of very strong buffs with long duration timers as we saw in EQ. The buff system added another layer of depth and player interaction to EQ. As an enchanter, I would often sit in PoK and adverstise KEI for donations. Great way to make some coin, meet new peeps, and help each other out. Or when out adventuring, groups that encounter each other can trade buffs. I would love to see this make a return to Pantheon and is what contributed in part to the "EQ factor".
What I dont want to see is automatic permanent buffs that are current group only that take no thought or consideration. This feels thin, weak, and lazy. I would be OK with modernizing the process, making buffs easier to manage for those classes that are buff-centric (shaman, etc) by utilizing a buff macro or something similar. We saw this in Vanguard, and it was a pretty nice time-saver, without making the buffing process 100% automatic.
Dekaden said:Liav said:I think all buffs should stack, just for the sake of simplicity.
As Mekada said, all it does is guarantee that your effectiveness as a whole is diminished if you're paired with another class that overwrites your buffs. Realistically, I don't think buffs should be as strong as they were in EQ, anyway. They should matter, but the strongest buffs of all should originate from dedicated support classes.
I'm also against long-duration timered buffs like EQ, honestly. Such a pain to micromanage all of that. I think EQ2 did it best, where some buffs are "permanent" and automatically apply to all group members within range, and last until toggled off. The exception being short duration (<2m) buffs that are used only during active combat. The system in EQ2 also had the Concentration system which meant that buff classes could only maintain a certain number of Concentration-related effects at a time.
Exactly the opposite for me. I enjoyed managing buffs, and most of the buffs in EQ were long duration, so this wasnt a big deal. This was also a key gameplay element for classes that specialized in buffs, such as the EQ shaman. Keeping the puma line of melee proc buff up on your group was almost a full time job, but the net dps gain was incredible. This added a key element of gameplay for this class, and made a huge impact on your group.
I am very much in favor of very strong buffs with long duration timers as we saw in EQ. The buff system added another layer of depth and player interaction to EQ. As an enchanter, I would often sit in PoK and adverstise KEI for donations. Great way to make some coin, meet new peeps, and help each other out. Or when out adventuring, groups that encounter each other can trade buffs. I would love to see this make a return to Pantheon and is what contributed in part to the "EQ factor".
What I dont want to see is automatic permanent buffs that are current group only that take no thought or consideration. This feels thin, weak, and lazy. I would be OK with modernizing the process, making buffs easier to manage for those classes that are buff-centric (shaman, etc) by utilizing a buff macro or something similar. We saw this in Vanguard, and it was a pretty nice time-saver, without making the buffing process 100% automatic.
Agree +1 shaman in past life, now a days buffs only last 5-15 mins and half the games dont allow out of group buffs another failure IMHO :)
Dekaden said:Exactly the opposite for me. I enjoyed managing buffs, and most of the buffs in EQ were long duration, so this wasnt a big deal. This was also a key gameplay element for classes that specialized in buffs, such as the EQ shaman. Keeping the puma line of melee proc buff up on your group was almost a full time job, but the net dps gain was incredible. This added a key element of gameplay for this class, and made a huge impact on your group.
I am very much in favor of very strong buffs with long duration timers as we saw in EQ. The buff system added another layer of depth and player interaction to EQ. As an enchanter, I would often sit in PoK and adverstise KEI for donations. Great way to make some coin, meet new peeps, and help each other out. Or when out adventuring, groups that encounter each other can trade buffs. I would love to see this make a return to Pantheon and is what contributed in part to the "EQ factor".
What I dont want to see is automatic permanent buffs that are current group only that take no thought or consideration. This feels thin, weak, and lazy. I would be OK with modernizing the process, making buffs easier to manage for those classes that are buff-centric (shaman, etc) by utilizing a buff macro or something similar. We saw this in Vanguard, and it was a pretty nice time-saver, without making the buffing process 100% automatic.
Puma was a short duration, short recast proc buff. I specifically exempted that in my post.
Really I guess what I dislike about casting buffs out of groups is that it's difficult to not use them to make lowbies too OP without imposing level restrictions on buffs. A level 1 X has 20 HP out of the box, but let me log in my boxed Cleric so I can give him an 800 HP buff and make him invincible. Let me buff this level 10 Wizard and give him infinite mana.
I guess you could make the buffs scale with the level of the recipient which could work. Idk.
I'd rather see long term buffs persist until death at least, like the Shaman all-in-one from Vanguard, instead of having arbitrary timers attached.
Liav said:Really I guess what I dislike about casting buffs out of groups is that it's difficult to not use them to make lowbies too OP without imposing level restrictions on buffs. A level 1 X has 20 HP out of the box, but let me log in my boxed Cleric so I can give him an 800 HP buff and make him invincible. Let me buff this level 10 Wizard and give him infinite mana.
I guess you could make the buffs scale with the level of the recipient which could work. Idk.
I can understand about huge buffs on low lvl main chairs, but buffing alts made it more fun to me at times. Struggling as a main char is fun if everyone is struggling but some times it's just fun to log onto an alt and just mindlessly kill things because you were a little OPed compaired to the area you were fighting in.
Simples said:I can understand about huge buffs on low lvl main chairs, but buffing alts made it more fun to me at times. Struggling as a main char is fun if everyone is struggling but some times it's just fun to log onto an alt and just mindlessly kill things because you were a little OPed compaired to the area you were fighting in.
To be fair, though, there's a difference between being a "little OP'd" and having literally 40 times the intended hit points for the level.
I remember in EQ when I would go to PoK to pick up all the buffs from shamans/clerics/enchanters that would hang out by the bank and buff for free/donations. This was when they could put points into extended buff timers. So I would get buffed then go off and look for a group and say that I had all the longest buffs. It never bothered me to make this a part of my routine when I logged on because you were able to get to know the players that were usually buffing which led to building relationships with them.
When I play a lowbie in project 1999 now I can say that it's always a relief when I see in chat that some high level player is casting buffs at a specific spot for anyone that wants them. It makes fighting mobs a lot easier. With that said, any buffs would make things easier. If buffs had a "level cap", where they were only as effective as your level, you would see less higher level players hanging out in lowbie areas helping out and we would be more reliant on buffs from players at or around your level. The social aspect is there either way. But with fewer higher level players around it would promote grouping up instead of trying to solo or at least it would provide the need to talk to your fellow player more often. Of course this is coming from the everquest point of view and not whatever the pantheon point of view will be at lower levels. I'm not sure I have a preference either way.
Mekada said:As a fan of paladin/crusader classes, I hope hybrids won't necessarily share buff spell line with the "parent" class. If 10-15% of what I bring to a group is buffs, I would expect this contribution to remain constant no matter what other classes join the group. Especially in the case of paladins where my buffs are supposed to make up for my reduced "natural" abilities.
Completely agree. A huge part of why rangers sucked in early EQ is because a good chunk of their dps was supposed to come from DoTs... except their DoTs didn't stack with caster DoTs. So then they were just a melee class that did less dps than a rogue or monk unless you didn't have a CC class in your group, which was it's own problem. But when the arguments came around to rebalanced classes, all the main classes were like "why should hybrids be rebalanced, they can do so much!" Even though a lot of the "so much" they got were rendered useless in more cases than not.
I'm not saying ALL spells should stack, but if a class is being balanced around certain dps/buffs etc, they should be able to use those abilities more often than not.
Scrago said:I remember in EQ when I would go to PoK to pick up all the buffs from shamans/clerics/enchanters that would hang out by the bank and buff for free/donations. This was when they could put points into extended buff timers. So I would get buffed then go off and look for a group and say that I had all the longest buffs. It never bothered me to make this a part of my routine when I logged on because you were able to get to know the players that were usually buffing which led to building relationships with them.
When I play a lowbie in project 1999 now I can say that it's always a relief when I see in chat that some high level player is casting buffs at a specific spot for anyone that wants them. It makes fighting mobs a lot easier. With that said, any buffs would make things easier. If buffs had a "level cap", where they were only as effective as your level, you would see less higher level players hanging out in lowbie areas helping out and we would be more reliant on buffs from players at or around your level. The social aspect is there either way. But with fewer higher level players around it would promote grouping up instead of trying to solo or at least it would provide the need to talk to your fellow player more often. Of course this is coming from the everquest point of view and not whatever the pantheon point of view will be at lower levels. I'm not sure I have a preference either way.
Yeah. Pretty much this.
I'd rather see people group up in a similar level spread than get all the best buffs available from max levels so they can go solo 90% of the game content, like they did in EQ.
Hopefully we never see twink items as strong as FCST as well, because that's equally as bad or worse in that it's a permanent effect.
Liav said:Dekaden said:Exactly the opposite for me. I enjoyed managing buffs, and most of the buffs in EQ were long duration, so this wasnt a big deal. This was also a key gameplay element for classes that specialized in buffs, such as the EQ shaman. Keeping the puma line of melee proc buff up on your group was almost a full time job, but the net dps gain was incredible. This added a key element of gameplay for this class, and made a huge impact on your group.
I am very much in favor of very strong buffs with long duration timers as we saw in EQ. The buff system added another layer of depth and player interaction to EQ. As an enchanter, I would often sit in PoK and adverstise KEI for donations. Great way to make some coin, meet new peeps, and help each other out. Or when out adventuring, groups that encounter each other can trade buffs. I would love to see this make a return to Pantheon and is what contributed in part to the "EQ factor".
What I dont want to see is automatic permanent buffs that are current group only that take no thought or consideration. This feels thin, weak, and lazy. I would be OK with modernizing the process, making buffs easier to manage for those classes that are buff-centric (shaman, etc) by utilizing a buff macro or something similar. We saw this in Vanguard, and it was a pretty nice time-saver, without making the buffing process 100% automatic.
Puma was a short duration, short recast proc buff. I specifically exempted that in my post.
Really I guess what I dislike about casting buffs out of groups is that it's difficult to not use them to make lowbies too OP without imposing level restrictions on buffs. A level 1 X has 20 HP out of the box, but let me log in my boxed Cleric so I can give him an 800 HP buff and make him invincible. Let me buff this level 10 Wizard and give him infinite mana.
I guess you could make the buffs scale with the level of the recipient which could work. Idk.
I'd rather see long term buffs persist until death at least, like the Shaman all-in-one from Vanguard, instead of having arbitrary timers attached.
You're looking at this from a "what has been done in the past" perspective, we don't need to repeat the same mistakes EQ made. Instead of clerics giving 800 hp buffs, they should give 800 hp worth of stamina to a proper leveled character, and that hp should scale down in effectiveness as a lower level character doesn't harness stamina the same way a a character of the same level as the spell would.
This would prevent having to artificially restrict who you can and cannot give buffs to, and instead would just be scaled to that person's level, that doesn't mean that the spell should scale down to just give 10 stamina instead of 80 to a low level, just that 80 stamina for that low level shouldn't give 800 hp.
Amsai said: I say let similar spell effects stack (bard haste and Shaman haste?) But have a cap on how much is stacked (percentage) (ill leave that to dev balancing). As for the same spells stacking...... thats probably a dev thing too. Id say no but there might be some casses where its ok. As for giving hybrids unique spells so they dont overlap on spell effects. I definitely support this. But mostly because I dont like recycled spells. Even if they achieve the same effect I would want spells to be different and themed per class.which should also mean they stack but within the same limitatons I mentioned before.
Buff stacking did work like that in EQ1 where you could have an Enchanter cast Haste and the Haste song from a bard in the group would stack. Shaman or Druid regeneration buff stacked with a healing song. Where things didn't stack is when the sources were from the same spell lines or if one version was of a lower level than another. A lvl 50 AGI buff would overwrite a lvl 40 AGI buff. Where things got interesting is when some buffs would have multiple effects (STR+DEX+STA) and if someone cast a single DEX buff it would overwrite the DEX part but let you keep the STR+STA.
Buff stacking needs to be thought out very carefully because any content developed must be designed as if everyone has the best buffs and buff combinations possible otherwise the content can become trivialized because of unforseen interactions with our armor, weapons, resists and stats.
Rallyd said:You're looking at this from a "what has been done in the past" perspective, we don't need to repeat the same mistakes EQ made. Instead of clerics giving 800 hp buffs, they should give 800 hp worth of stamina to a proper leveled character, and that hp should scale down in effectiveness as a lower level character doesn't harness stamina the same way a a character of the same level as the spell would.
This would prevent having to artificially restrict who you can and cannot give buffs to, and instead would just be scaled to that person's level, that doesn't mean that the spell should scale down to just give 10 stamina instead of 80 to a low level, just that 80 stamina for that low level shouldn't give 800 hp.
You're just reiterating exactly what I said with a slightly different implementation. Either way would achieve the same result.
Edit: Also, to the posts above, Bard and Shaman haste didn't stack in all cases. There was "haste v2" and "haste v3". Bards have both v2 and v3, and they stack, but Bard v2 won't stack with Shaman v2 (v2 is all shamans have). Just for reference.
I am playing EQ now and still like the buff system. I rather like that you have to manage buff timers as a part of being effective. I also like earning the ability to extend buff durations through enhanced euipment gains or eventually AAs.
Now, having these scale with level would be ideal to eliminate the OP twinks or encouraging soling. In Pantheon, I entertained the idea of having combinations of certain spells, interlocking between all class types to create a stronger effect. You have to discover what these are, but let's say two similar type spells morph into something stronger if in same group.
Example would be: Cleric buff (Virtue - HP buff type) combined with Shaman (Focus - HP buff type) would morph to Divine Focus (increased HP buff with regen quality)
If druid and shaman cast their spells, maybe it becomes Focused Skin (HP increase with DS quality)
Each combination of classes would have differnt outcomes combining similar base spells. THAT would be fun..
I hate EQ's buff system. Way too much inconsistency between spell durations.
All it does is encourages people to crowd into the GL overnight so when they come back in the morning their character has a full set of level-relevant buffs and they can shred things for 2-3 hours.
Also, having to use 12 hotbars to fit all of my dozens of clickies on is ridiculous.
Although the problem with the GL came way later in the game, I still found the fact that pretty much every buff had different durations to be atrocious.
Liav said:I hate EQ's buff system. Way too much inconsistency between spell durations.
All it does is encourages people to crowd into the GL overnight so when they come back in the morning their character has a full set of level-relevant buffs and they can shred things for 2-3 hours.
Also, having to use 12 hotbars to fit all of my dozens of clickies on is ridiculous.
Although the problem with the GL came way later in the game, I still found the fact that pretty much every buff had different durations to be atrocious.
One game I played a while ago also had quite different buff durations, but they were normalized eventually. Was it VG? Not sure. I agree that lots of different buff durations do not make for a better game. It makes sense that not all buffs have the same duration, but I don't see the need for many different levels. Make short, medium, long...that should be enough :)
Part of EQ's social aspect was drive by buffing, and I liked that a lot. EQ2's concentration buffs were a good idea, but they prevented that social aspect, so I'm not a fan of them.
I 100% agree that buffs from items should be very limited. If you play EQ today, the game is wonderful up to lvl 70 or 80ish (as good as we remember it). After that, your action bars suddenly begin to fill up with tons of AA abilities and item clickies. This totally changes the way the game feels for me.
On the topic of stacking buffs: EQ's system works quite well. "Lesser" buffs get overwritten by higher versions of the same spell. Things get interesting when buffs bring different effects, for example +HP, +AC, +STR/DEC. Another buff that brings some of these but also other effects (like +AC, +Mana regen) will usually stack but only one of the shared components will work (the higher +AC component for example). If it is documented well how these rules apply, and also shown in the spell descriptions, then it should be good.
Liav said:I hate EQ's buff system. Way too much inconsistency between spell durations.
Dues the duration really matter? Even if the buffs were all the same say 60 minutes you would have buffs on you from different times. That druid running past cast a run haste on you. Now it will expire at a different time to all your others. Then 10 minutes later a cleric casts a buff on you. Wether they are all the same or not, you will end up with buffs lasting different length times on you.
It will be a wait and see product how they do buffs, if you can use them only on your group or on other people outside the group.
Krixus said:Honestly, how long did it take to figure it out? Paladins and clerics shared the same line of buffs. Just like there were lines of mob names that you learned were shamans or wizards or necros etc, you knew which spells were part of which chain. I guess it was kind of a pain to know which strength buff would overwrite which, or which AC buffs would stack, but we figured it out. I don't think that's a good reason to make them all stack. Imo the reason to make more buff stack would be to increase the effectiveness of the classes that didn't have the highest end buffs, but there other ways that can be accomplished. And also, do we really want 20 buffs in a pickup group? Raid buffing was one of my least favorite things.