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Long Duration Buffs?
anemo
Member RarePosts: 1,903
Every MMO has a few classes that have buffs that last 20 minutes to an hour in time. In general should they exist? And were they ever a good design in the first place?
Examples being the healer that casts that +% defense, the ranger/bard/hunter that casts the critical % bonus, and similar.
However they don't really ever seem to add that much to the actual "Play space"/"option space" in the game. There is never going to be a dungeon start where you're like "We need to go now! No time for buffs", their duration in things like PvP just don't matter since before the start of the round there is always enough time to get everyone in the party anyways, their benefits are so "only positive" that there is never a reason to not have them casted, and most of the time even applying the buffs are trival to the point that you're done before the whole party is loaded in.
Examples being the healer that casts that +% defense, the ranger/bard/hunter that casts the critical % bonus, and similar.
However they don't really ever seem to add that much to the actual "Play space"/"option space" in the game. There is never going to be a dungeon start where you're like "We need to go now! No time for buffs", their duration in things like PvP just don't matter since before the start of the round there is always enough time to get everyone in the party anyways, their benefits are so "only positive" that there is never a reason to not have them casted, and most of the time even applying the buffs are trival to the point that you're done before the whole party is loaded in.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
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Comments
Of course they should exist; it's kind of a social thing.
I guess in the MMO I play now days the equivalent is giving a newb a care package of rare-ish items. Not that much effort on my part, lots of value to the newb.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
The extremely long duration buffs only enable people to operate more easily without a group, which seemed to be behavior that wasn't in line with a group-oriented game philosophy. All too often, one person dispensing KEI in the Nexus kept lower level enchanters (50-59) from finding a spot in groups. I'm very curious to see how long independent buffs actually last in some of the upcoming games.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Not a great idea.
I like the idea of buffs that instead of being limited by time is used up thoough, like a mage armor that takes 25% of your damage until it absorbed a certain number of HPs.
Long buffs give weaker bonuses than short buffs and shorter buffs give stronger bonuses.
So 1-2 hour long haste gives 5% to attack speed
15 minute buff gives 10% to attack speed. You get incentive to travel in groups and you get incentive for social interaction.
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Firstly, I think buffs are at their best when they have a cost that makes them more significant: components, long cooldowns, etc.
Secondly, buffs should be balanced in a responsible way to content and between classes/skills/abilities. Not every archetype needs some variant of the same buff or mechanic.
Lastly, buffs should not be a burden, but a boon, to the playerbase.
I think it depends on how the class is balanced vs the rest of the game. They did a good job with this IMO.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
SWG's doctors buffs, for example, were pointless. Apart from newbie grinding, you pretty much had to be buffed permanently, hell, you couldn't even wear proper armour without buffs! So, it added nothing to the gameplay, it was just a requirement. The only positive was it improved the social scene as you'd have a chat with other people whilst waiting for buffs, but more often than not most people were silent and the docs / entertainers were just on macros.
LotRO, on the other hand, worked well. I played a captain (buffer) who had a few long duration buffs. One increased health by 10%, the others increased either crit chance, parry/evade or power regen. They lasted 30 minutes iirc. They weren't gamebreaking so you could live without them. 30 minutes wasn't enough to get you through most dungeons, so it still paid to bring your buffer with you. Passers by appreciated the buffs, it was a nice bonus for them without unbalancing anything.
If you can buff others and there is a diversity of classes then they serve a purpose imo
Overall I think it's better to replace these abilities with auras that are constantly active and don't need to be refreshed. Abilities that remove such buffs should be replaces with abilities that suppress auras temporarily.
Just way less tedious that way.
If we want to go back to the days of handing out long duration buffs we should up them to like three hour buffs for watching a bard play in a tavern or something. Not 20-60min buffs someone slaps on you as you run by. Grab your instrument and head to a tavern if you want to hand out buffs.
buffs that last 10s or less and are party wide need TO DIE (outside powerfull CD buffs like 10% more dmg raid wide )
buffs that are party should be auras (a way to enforce grouping with buffers) , or last 30s+ and be refreshed fighting (Bard in rift)
buffs that last 1h are ok . Oh and no buffs should cost any item (vanilla wow) it was annoying.
The really short duration ones were annoying, very true though.
What I always have taken issue with, are buffs that are necessary to play the game (actually needed, or just perceived to be needed).
Clarity/KEI/whatever for casters and Haste for melee in EQ - great examples. You ~could~ get by without them, but seeing as how it more than drastically cut your downtime, it was more or less needed.