Soulbind, Buffs, Healers, Oh My!
- Thread starter Rorne
- Start date
Obscenitor
Dalayan Elder
Getting rid of soulbind is a terrible terrible idea in my honest opinion, most people will never understand why, but when you are testing new content and you wipe 12-15 times a night because of bugs/learning strats -- I don't think having to do complete rebuffs while dealing with the multitude of AFKs that occur in-between wipes would really add any value to this game whatsoever. Even outside of learning new content, I would not be surprised if the average guild wipes 4-5 times a raid -- and this doesn't include the monk that dies every pull or asks for rebuffs in-between FD fails..
In a game that could stand to be a bit more streamlined and raid friendly this is heading in the exact opposite direction.
In a game that could stand to be a bit more streamlined and raid friendly this is heading in the exact opposite direction.
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Kedrin
Dalayan Pious Diety
This line alone sums up my feelings on this.
I liked the patch that helped wipe recovery faster, and I hope there is more patches that continue with this line of thinking. In a thread I made Spell: Call of the Predator, a buff people care about I listed three buffs that have yet to have their Recharge time changed to Instant since the changes.
Although it is rare, eqjenius brings up a good point. I know this has been on the minds of a lot of people for a long time. Xardon and I use to talk about this very topic a long time back.
Best case scenario, I feel, would to remove all the buffs from the game and simply have each class have an aura around them that helps the people in their group/raid in some way. They would have to be unique for each class and also have the ability to stack up to three without being too overpowered and/or "needed".
This would take a lot of time and it would also require to revamp almost all the content in the game, since most raids would be harder and also 6 mans would even be more of a pain to balance.
For now I feel making buffs more easy to deal with is the better, more easy, direction to sail. This means buffs costing less mana, lowering recharge times (like SoD had been doing).
Some other things we might want to do is making buffs durations longer.
SV having the same duration as SSS would be a good start : Both being Duration: 1800 ticks
Spell: Call of the Predator having a duration of 1800 ticks would also be nice so the casters wouldn't have to click it off as much.
Thanks to a recent patch, this is already the case. Spiritual Bliss remains a much shorter duration (and should be extended IMHO), but SV is now the same length as SSS.
zorlon2
Dalayan Elder
What are you people smoking, I seriously want some.
While you're at it, throw out the EQ engine and make a brand new video game and scrap SoD all together.
"The wheel rolls."
Kedrin
Dalayan Pious Diety
I said Best case scenario, however I don't feel it is very feasible.
jew_nose_it
Dalayan Master
Great now I have to load a BST when I buff, thanks a lot.
I kind of like the general gist of it but I think if we were going that far the auras thing would be redundant. If everything including 6-man stuff is balanced around everyone having a full complement of buffs, they could be balanced around having no buffs at all just as easily; buffs dependent on having the class in your group would just complicate things (just having Bards is already bad enough as it is).
In that scenario classes would be balanced entirely around active contributions in battle, perhaps including some short-term buff effects (like ENC and BST stuff) but predominantly just the usual damage/healing/utility stuff. Things like Mana regen, ATK buffs, Haste and maybe DS would be provided entirely by equipment instead, with higher caps and values and generally being more plentiful (probably sacrifice mostly unecessary item effects like Mind Shield and Spell Ward for ATK and Haste instead of getting trapped by 1-effect-per-item stuff, like we did with FT). Balancing NPC damage around not having any AC or HP buffs should be easy enough since those are fairly limited already and stop scaling early into the raid game.
Benefits would be nice and shortcomings would be few, but I'd have to agree that people wouldn't be patient enough to put up with all those changes as they came through and there'd probably be too much incredulity that it would work out for anyone to let me go ahead with it. So shrug.
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Rorne
The sad fish is a reactionary creature; an enemy o
Yeah like slow progression has even been a deciding factor on this server, your entire guild is a testament that people will put up with tons of abuse. Putting up with some birthing pains could mean things like altering the optimal set-up 6-man difficulty is balanced around where you're assumed to be rolling with every single important buff even though many of those classes aren't present.
I think that while the monk example is valid you could just reduce both mana costs of buffs and casting time as well as allowing beneficial spells to be cast while you have death effects. Also your AFK example is meaningless because if a fight is difficult enough to postpone fighting until they rebuff you (ie: raid boss, not trash) you're not going to engage until they are back anyways, SB buffs or not.
Maybe once you aren't considered by default to have 1300+hp, 60ish% haste, 18+ mana regen, etc when approaching new content it might actually make things more flexible, you know, if anyone sticks around through the changes instead of migrating to p99
Obscenitor
Dalayan Elder
Mana cost is already set to 1 if you are in a raid and not in combat, but the increased casting time would be cool as well. In regard to my comment about AFKs inbetween wipes, the exact reason that I brought it up is we already have to wait for that person to get back. With your proposed removal of soulbind, we would also have to make sure that AFK person XYZ received the buffs they need that they didn't get because they were AFK (SSS vs SV, WON vs Focus etc.).
I think maybe because you have been disconnected from the raid game on SoD or anything that slightly resembles it for the past ~2 years you definitely underestimate the timesink that it is to wipe. Anything that might add to that timesink would be a poorly designed change in my mind.
Rorne
The sad fish is a reactionary creature; an enemy o
True, my memory suffers a deep fall-off after roughly two years so I am unable to remember raiding and wiping to fights until 6am. It's not instead a case of me thinking that perhaps if this was to happen things could then be done to circumvent or mitigate what you are talking about also I had forgotten that if you don't have the precise buffs you actually explode immediately when attempting to fight something.
Even if applicable buff cast times were reduced to near nothing that extra 3 seconds would still take way way too much time, time that could be better spent DBing an entire raid.
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Rorne
The sad fish is a reactionary creature; an enemy o
To be clear the unrealistic utopian intent of these changes is not to make life more difficult for the poor beleaguered man who currently logs in numerous and sometimes multiple of the same class to SB every buff on himself, it's supposed to be a move towards changing buffs from a default back into an asset a class brings to a group.
Of course you couldn't just slap this in and call it a day but tweaking content to bring it in line with new changes is not some insurmountable task and would be the first step in shifting fight design towards towards the center instead of the top which would change the game for the better, and no I'm not talking about straight up making fights easier but about things like allowing for more freedom when it comes to group composition.
Take the talk about clerics and druids for example, the problem isn't that druids are a bad class it's that clerics are just too damn good and everything is designed around creating a fight that challenges their abilities. I know that many would argue that if this happened it would only make stuff like 6-man group composition restrictive but I'm talking about shaking things up and lowering the bar, you will never be able to stop players from attempting to eek out every damn advantage they can but to a point designing around that has been a big mistake.
Anyways please feel free to counter about how you took X class to Y fight and it can totally be done and other people just suck and I'm totally wrong or whatever. Oh and also if you'd like to extrapolate that I'm trying to make the game into some "playschool and easy WoW style mmo" that's cool too.
Of course you couldn't just slap this in and call it a day but tweaking content to bring it in line with new changes is not some insurmountable task and would be the first step in shifting fight design towards towards the center instead of the top which would change the game for the better, and no I'm not talking about straight up making fights easier but about things like allowing for more freedom when it comes to group composition.
Take the talk about clerics and druids for example, the problem isn't that druids are a bad class it's that clerics are just too damn good and everything is designed around creating a fight that challenges their abilities. I know that many would argue that if this happened it would only make stuff like 6-man group composition restrictive but I'm talking about shaking things up and lowering the bar, you will never be able to stop players from attempting to eek out every damn advantage they can but to a point designing around that has been a big mistake.
Anyways please feel free to counter about how you took X class to Y fight and it can totally be done and other people just suck and I'm totally wrong or whatever. Oh and also if you'd like to extrapolate that I'm trying to make the game into some "playschool and easy WoW style mmo" that's cool too.
Obscenitor
Dalayan Elder
Change all buffs to be inherently soulbound and change the soulbind AA to actually provide an enhancement to that buff if they are in the group a la Shared Mind.
There, I said it Marza.
Edit: good fix for everyone, even people that don't play this game will rejoice.
There, I said it Marza.
Edit: good fix for everyone, even people that don't play this game will rejoice.
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Buffing is a part of the game. That being said, rebuffing after wipes would go by faster if buffs were simply faster to cast. I don't see anything overpowered or even remotely redundant in just making some buffs near instant or 1 second cast times etc. Does a lvl 60 shammy buff khura's focusing really need a 26 second cast time? GoE is 4 seconds to cast and is raid wide,yet EMP is 5+ seconds and is single target. It's buff discrepencies like that, that make buffing a redundant chore. some buff cast times are just plain silly in the amount of time it takes to cast and the recast time associated with them.
Well for shammys in-particular i was always under the impression was so it couldn't be used as a ghetto gheal
Rorne
The sad fish is a reactionary creature; an enemy o
Just remove "Increase current hitpoints"
Temellin
*Gnomalicious*
I liked your post, but I like this idea much better :V. Make it proc a self g-flux now and then.
Also, seriously this change would be awesome. Getting rid of soulbind makes it so that you actually have to have people who play classes instead of years old inherited buff bots (And a buff-my-buff AA would make it go down a bit easier). Addressing the horrendous inequalities of a cleric-centric buff market by redistributing the hitpoints to the working class druids and shamans of Dalaya would be a fantastic change as well.
zorlon2
Dalayan Elder
I think the problem you are more looking for is Buff Duration, not Soulbond.
I don't even support my own idea but anyway:
1. Remove Duration Increment from the game.
2. Decrease the duration of Buffs to a maximum of 72 minutes, in line with Soulbond.
3. On a case-by-case scenario, increase the duration of certain things like selfclickers and self-buffs like Combine and BBR and the like.
4. Leave the increase from the buff duration AAs alone.
You can still do all of the 6-man runs with all of your buffs. On raids you only have to refresh buffs every 90 minutes or so, and the important ones will still be SBd after wipes.
I don't even support my own idea but anyway:
1. Remove Duration Increment from the game.
2. Decrease the duration of Buffs to a maximum of 72 minutes, in line with Soulbond.
3. On a case-by-case scenario, increase the duration of certain things like selfclickers and self-buffs like Combine and BBR and the like.
4. Leave the increase from the buff duration AAs alone.
You can still do all of the 6-man runs with all of your buffs. On raids you only have to refresh buffs every 90 minutes or so, and the important ones will still be SBd after wipes.
Dinadass
Dalayan Pious Diety
It would also have a pretty major impact on people that grind by themselves solo or twoboxing. I'd imagine some people would like that aspect and others wouldn't.
edit- Zorlon, if you try to do something like Cata or Emberflow while on-tier, it will more than likely take longer than 72 minutes.
edit- Zorlon, if you try to do something like Cata or Emberflow while on-tier, it will more than likely take longer than 72 minutes.