f13.net

I've been reading the forums on the Turbine web page, because I was considering a return to AC Darktide and I wanted to check out the current state of the game.  I saw the devs talk about buffing and some solutions they had for reducing the amount of time it took.

And then I remembered the buffing.  Asheron's Call is all about buffing.  A buffed up character is godly, but in an unbuffed state they can be killed in 1 shot.  I remembered spending 10 minutes buffing my character up, just so I could play for another 10 or 15 minutes before having to repeat the whole cycle.

I don't think the original developers intended players to cast every possible buff on their characters and keep those buffs up at all times.  I don't think the developers foresaw players having every single spell available to them.

Originally, you had to learn all your spells.  Characters with the Arcane Lore skill could learn spells from scrolls found off monsters, and those spell forumals would give them clues to other formulas, but most spells had to be learned through casting and it included a lot of expensive guesswork.  We didn't even know every spell that existed.

Eventually a player created a 3rd party program that would decipher ALL of the spell formulas by plugging in the lower ones that you already knew.  Suddenly everyone could cast every spell.  And they did.

Content was designed around the fact that everyone would be buffed to the hilt all the time.  People complained about the cost and time they had to spend on buffing, yet they continued to do so.  People complained about the sheer weight of the spell components they had to carry, which would last through a few buffing cycles of all four schools of magic.

While Turbine addressed some of these problems, there is still the basic assumption that characters will be buffed.

I understand it's similar in EQ.  While I doubt the EQ buffs are as powerful as the AC buffs, I've heard casters complain about other players who cry when a buff begins to drop.  I've heard casters complain about burning all their mana on healing and buffing other players, then sitting down and meditating it back while the others fight.

If a player can cast a buff, he WILL cast a buff.  Eventually all of the players and developers will expect everyone to be buffed with every buff possible and the vicious cycle will continue.  Someone is either going to be the bored buffer, or they will use buffbots.

I think long lasting buffs are the wrong approach to take.  It's really just another grind for the caster.  I believe buffs and debuffs should be short term affairs which are cast on the fly, and used for tactical reasons.  This approach completely removes the requirement of spending a large percentage of playtime making your character(s) as powerful as the developers expect them to be.

Another idea I was tinkering with to prevent this buff madness is to reduce the caster's mana pool by the buff cost for its duration.  The caster could buff/debuff everything in sight, but he won't have any mana left to do anything else.

I think DAoC already does the "reduce the mana pool" thing, but it's not the mana pool, it's the concentration pool. It only matters on certain buffs, i.e. the ones that use concentration. The buffs are always on, but the caster only has a certain amount of concentration points to use. I could be wrong, since I don't play a buffer or a caster, but I think the unlimited range of some of these was the start of the buffbot problem.

You are correct, if players CAN be buffed all the time, they will be. I think this has led to lots of stupid mudflation issues. ALL of EQ's end-game content (and a lot of regular static content from Kunark-time onward) is based on the assumption that the party will use the best buffs AND items they can get.

I think buffs should really only be done by either one-use potion type of deals, or cause some serious consternation for the buffer. I think most buffs come out of the D&D Bless spell school of thought. For my type of game, take buffs and make them require some actual work to do, including burning reagents, praying, etc. Give them a chance of failure. And for fuck's sake, do not make any class/profession/template rely on buffing as their primary use in a group or in the game. It should be a side venture, not an entire spec line for casters. Buffing people is BORING, worse even than healing. No one will willfully play a boring class.

I am of a vote for no buffing, but de-buffing.  Would require activity by the player and have an aggro feature depending on the buff strength.

I do not like the Buff mentality.

The big difference being that D&D clerics got a limited number of spells per day and they had to choose between buffs/healing/divination/offense/defense.  MMOPRG clerics get a mana pool that regenerates, which encourages the whole max buffing mentality.  The reduced mana pool idea is aimed at bringing that decision making back to the game.

Or put em on relatively short timers with long downtimes; make a buff on a fighter last for 5 or 10 minutes then he cannot be affected by that buff effect (by any buffer) for 30 minutes more.  Make them more strategic or situational.

Related (and I love debuffs), after your buff has worn off and while you're under the re-use timer, make debuffs 200% effective on this player.

DAoC have similarly admitted the same from SI onward.

Imo, buffing is ok so long as it is an active skill.

Possible ways to do this...

- Buffs that last 10-20 seconds but have a dramatic effect.
- Buffs that have a downside as well as upside (maybe the 'do 20% extra spell damage' buff also blocks 50% of healing) so that you have to turn them on and off during combat.
- Buffs that disappear if the buffer strays more than a few feet from the buffee, or maybe buff timers that run down much quicker at longer ranges.
- Reactive buffs such as 'give group 20% resistance to the last damage type that hit me'.
- Short duration Buffs cast as part of combat feat or spell chains.
- PBAoE chant buffs - of the sort paladins usally get.

DAoC style buff-bots, and EQ style timer buffs, however, clearly need to go.



I dislike this idea - it encourages buff bots.

Losing mana is exactly like losing conc if you are a daoc buffbot.

However, if you are not a buff bot it prevents you doing anything else.

More buffs should be like the Group Leadership abilities in EQ (or in a cruder sense, Bardsong.)

The problem with EQ buffing has evolved. Or, some may say, it's meandered, as some would argue that it hasn't become better.

It used to be that buffs were mana-intensive, wore off very quickly, and were impractical for big-game hunting. For those that remember the initial Vox and Nagafen raids, you'll recall time was of the essence: you buffed for the fight, and you attacked imminently, lest they wear off. For pickup raids, or less-organised forces, "Buff queues" were formed whereby groups buffed one at a time, then actually camped out to the EQ Chat server to wait for the call to come back in. That's how long buffing took for those outwith the top tier of play, and that's how quickly they wore off. In EXP groups, keeping buffs up on an entire group could be problematic and caused downtime.

Kunark's introduction of group buffs helped a lot; high duration buffs began to appear with Aegolism in Velious and reached a peak with Mass Group Buff in Luclin. It was a false peak, however; a higher echelon was discovered with the 3 hour plus spells available with Planes of Power, not to mention Extended Enhancement IV (i.e. works on spells up to level 65, the maximum) items available somewhat readily from mid-tier bosses, or crafted by Potters from tier 2 plane drops. A Velious tradeskill quest also resulted in this effect.

This is the situation we have today. Buff-bots? Sort of - a lot of groups may plant an ENC or a SHM nearby to buff (and possibly slow). Buff-o-matics are more common. Log onto your favourite EQ server and go into Plane of Knowledge. You'll see SO much spam relating to SELLING buffs. Shamans will sell STA, AGI, Focus, whatever. Clerics will sell Temperance (baby Virtue) or Virtue, or group Virtue. And, most of all, Enchanters. They'll sell KEI, C5, and other spells.Haste too. And this makes buffs "necessary" (in that most people are used to them) but the grouping unnecessary. This has Enchanters up in arms, but that's worn down a bit recently, as Enchanters still more than hold their own in most six-man groups. Anyway, that's not entirely relevant.

The one thing EQ buffing indisputably got right with buff stacking. No such AC problem exists: you simply must pick the best spells for each "slot" and live with them. It's cookie cutter, yes, it relies on some classes more than others, yes, but it's MUCH better than allowing any spell willy-nilly.

What do I think about all this? Well, I come back again to Bardsong and leadership abilities. Bard songs affect your group (or raid) with an 18 second duration and must be constantly refreshed. No arguments about mana; no arguments about duration relative to cost; no arguments about botting or selling buffs ensue. Giving a variety of bard-esque abilities to a variety of classes removes all of these variables while still giving buffs a meaningful role in the game.

I'll post on debuffing some other time, as it's entirely different. I don't even like the term debuffing very much as it equates the two too easily.

The only "buff stacking" I can think of in AC is the ability to impen/bane armor AND underclothes.  The problem with AC is that every skill and every stat can be buffed.

For those of you who have never played AC before, a buff cycle goes something like this for my gimpy mage, the last time I played him:

Creature Enchantment Mastery 5 (so I can cast level 6 creature spells easier)
Creature Enchantment Mastery 6
Mana Conversion Mastery 6
Focus Self 6
Willpower Self 6
Item Magic Mastery 6
Impenetrability 6 (Amuli Top)
Impenetrability 6 (Amuli Pants)
Impentrability 6 (shirt)
Impenetrabiltiy 6 (pants)
Impenetrability 6 (gloves)
Bludgeon Bane 6 (Amuli Top)
Bludgeon Bane 6 (Amulit Pants)
Bludgeon Bane 6 (shirt)
Bludgeon Bane 6 (pants)
Bludgeon Bane 6 (gloves)
Armor Self 6
Bludgeon Protection 6
War Magic Mastery 6
Focus Self 6 (stat buffs were short, have to cast again at end of buff cycle)
Willpower self 6
Endurance Self 6

And that's a SHORT buff cycle for fighting tuskers.  I might have even left some stuff out.  I did leave out helm and shoe buffs because tuskers don't hit those locastions.  Also notice that I only buffed for ONE damage type.  AC has fire, lightning, cold, acid, piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning damage.  When going to PvP or in a real dangerous area, you have to buff for ALL of those.  Imagine casting a bane for each damage type for each piece of armor.  

There are also the other life protect spells to cast.  Then you'd also buff your heal skill, run, all stats (strength, coordination, quickness, endurace, focus and willpower).  You'd cast your weapon skill mastery, you'd buff your weapon for damage, speed and accuracy.  You'd buff your shield up for everything in case you went melee.

I didn't even mention the fact that your character will have nowhere near enough mana to cast all this crap.  You have to use the transfer spells to accomplish this.  You'd either cast health to mana and heal yourself with a kit, or if you had high enough mana conversion, you'd cast stamina to mana and then revitalize to get your mana back.

During this process you'd burn through TONS of spell components, which cost lots of money, and more importantly make your character overuncumbered on a full pack of them.

Every now and then I think AC might have been a good game, and then I remember this.

Did doing all that result in more exp/time than spending that time just killing stuff?  If you spend 5 mins buffing, and 10 mins killing before you have to buff again, for example, why not screw all the buffs, and just kill for 15 minutes?  If doing all that makes a notable difference in exp/time, then something is borken.

--
Alkiera

I'm not a big fan of buff spells in a game design.  Why?

1. Firstly, I believe in strong solo play.  Having buff spells either makes it nearly impossible for the soloer, or requires all soloers to be in hybrid classes that can buff themselves.

2. It adds to a problem most MMOGs have of stat and damage inflation where the gap between the high-end content and the starting content becomes fairly mind-boggling.

3. Such spells become, effectively, a time sink that adds little to fun.  All encounters must be geared with the idea that the characters may have all the buffs appropriate to their level.  This forces them to buff just to access said content.  On the other hand, if you don't account for that, then a bunch of people may whine that your content is too easy.

AC2 somewhat solved these problems by allowing all classes to buff themselves in unique ways, and those buffs were frequently long-lasting.  However, given the power of some buffs that some classes had, it made soloing easier for some than for others.

If you're going to make a game for soloers, I'd be tempted to design so that:

1. Buffs can't be cast on others, so each class has to use their own buffs
2. Buffs should be small in effect and not required to defeat content
3. Buffs should be long-lasting

If you're going to make a game that requires large group raids, then your best bet is creating tiers of combination spells that can buff entire groups so you don't have to sit around for 20 minutes just buffing everyone up in your guild.

Bruce

I tend to think this assumption that the design must cater for everyone on a raid being fully buffed all the time is the core of buff problems.

A buff character as currently constituted in EQ...

1) Ramps up their effectiveness indefinitely in larger raid partys.
2) Remains stuck in a 'bot' role.

If you set up with long lasting buffs that can be cast on an unlimited number of people, you restrict how powerful they can be in small group encounters, to the point where the buff character is not providing the same advantage as, for example, another tank.

So I think you have to limit total buff output, and you have to do so in a way that allows one buffer to give a similar total contribution either in single group or zerg encounters.

This together with the need for the buffer to active in encounters still leads me back to short duration, relatively large effect, cast-in-combat designed buffs. More examples...

- Buff that makes the next swing proc a DD (or a snare, or a dot, or a debuff, or another buff), only lasts a few seconds if not used.
- Buffs that can only be landed on an character under attack, and which falls when that character loses aggro.
- Buff that makes a character gain double or half aggro for a short period.
- Buffs that can only be cast on characters that have built up enough 'rage'. Or when the buffer has built up enough 'rage'.

Most of these would have to have very short or instant cast times.

And wherever possible you're looking for effects that are, at least in part, tactical condition modifiers - not just generic stat boosts.

Last time I played AC1, the buff durations were quite a bit longer than 10mins, I think it was 30mins for the lowest, 45 for mids and 60 for highest. So it was more like buff for 5, fight for 55.


AC2 has come up with a way of doing things that'll mean buffs from other players aren't usable for soloing, so solo content won't end up being balanced for people using every buff. Also, the tedium generated by group buffing will be cut out by most buffs being automatically fellowship-progagated and not needing recasting.

If you want to read the full system, it's here. (http://forums.ac2.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=721)

While I would agree with buff characters falling easily into the bot trap, Buffers/Debuffers not so. Too much mob interaction to bot this efficiently.

Never in my 65 levels as an EQ Shaman I was reduced to buffing alone. Mainly because I used my other abilites which Shaman have plenty to help out their group.

Longer lasting buffs (in higher levels) actually enabled me to do more of those other things my character was able to do. Of course, a badly played Shaman is easily replaced by a bot. And I guess thats true for every buff class.

So I think the way to go would be short buff durations for classes that work mainly with buffs (so that thery are not bored or botted), and long buff durations for classes that bring other things to the group. Actually there are people who take pride in the fact that they can juggle buffs effectively and keep everybody buffed up. That should be a viable character template for them.

How's about this for a twist on the old D&D logic.  Instaed of spell casters having every spell available at any time, they have to choose a limited number of known spells at each given spell level.  And while that number may increase over time you will always know less than half the total spells available for a given level.

This wouldn't neccessarily eliminate buff bots per se as a two box players may well decide to make a spell caster that focus on learning those spells, or a dedicated guild might have a person go that route, but for a typical active player, they can at least have a choice if they want to bother learning buffs at all.  Admittedly it's not a great solution but if we were talking about a change to existing magic systems in games like DAoC, AC and EQ, would this help?

Of course, this is all premised on their not being one best spell per level or indespensible buffs (i.e. mana regen accelerators) and having magic mean more than just it's affects on combat, but thats another thread entirely.  It pushes individual spells to be more like skills.  Personally, I love to see spells be generically available to all players who want to invest skill points in learning them (again back to a system with lot and lots of skills to choose from)

Xilren

Buff durations have vastly improved, at the high end, (lvl 7 spells) duration is an hour. So you buff for 3-6 minutes, and then hunt for the remaining 54-57 minutes.

Shortest amount of time I believe is 30 minutes, but don't quote me, since it's been forever since I casted anything but 7's.

Again, you talk like this is a good thing.

If a buffing role in a MMOG doesn't involve continuous decision making during an actual battle (to the same extent that healing, tanking, nuking, all require decision making), then I don't see how it adds anything to the game.

Rip it out if you can't do better. Personally I believe you can.

What he said ^^^^^

A single tusker can kill an unbuffed mage with 1 hit.  When attacking one, a mage will be swarmed by 6-8 of them, all hitting constantly.  I'm sure they aren't the "thing" to kill anymore, but back in the day they were high level and therefore high XP value.  They were easy to kill because they just had lots of health and a big attack that could be defended against.

I never got level 7 spells, but I was around for a short time when they extended the durations.  But 3-6 minutes seems really fast for a full set of buffs.

The buff duration change brought in problems of its own.  Some people didn't buff for EVERYTHING all the time before because it was expensive and time consuming.  Once the durations were extended, everyone was buffed for everything all the time.

Also, I felt screwed because I had Arcane Lore.  Now Creature mages could just cast their stat buffs and have them last forever instead of relying on jewelry.

I like the way the 'inspirations' work in CoH.  I like that WITHOUT any buffing class at all.  CoH has other types of buffs as well that are actually cast by buffing type powers, but I really like the inspirations.

For those that don't know, they work like potions.  You get limited space for these that is based on level.  They drop rapidly, about every few mobs has one.  They are very short duration, about 20-30 seconds or so.  They are single use and then gone.  They stack infinately with themselves.  They can be traded.  They can be purchased at vendors.  What this does is relieves anyone of having to worry about any other persons buffs but there own.  If you are in a real challenging area you can benefit by trading them.  Give the endurance (mana) ones to the blasters and controllers.  Give the healing ones to the tanks and brawlers, the accuracy ones to the blaster, etc...

You can stockpile a LITTLE when starting out.  Basically pick up some rarer ones and reserve space for others that drop on the way.  They are a very entertaining way to get out of a sticky situation.  Getting your butt kicked because 5 more creatures ran around the corner you didn't see?  Fire off 3-5 damage buffs pretty much instantly, throw on a health buff and start dropping area effect powers like crazy that are now doing huge damage.  The effect wears off quickly and you take it easy for abit while collecting and filling up on more.

You use them because you can't store them very well.  They stack because it is not imbalancing due to the fact that you can't stockpile very well and they don't last that long.

It allows people to control their own destiny to a large degree instead of relying on the buffer for everything.  Everyone can use all the different inspirations, and a surplus of any of them is useful but requires a different tactic to get out of trouble.

Here is the buff system that I would use with the goal of eliminating classes that only buff,  downtime from buffing, balance issues between pure melee classes and hybrids, dependency on a single class, and buff bots.

Buffs in general
- don't require mana
- don't requre expensive reagents
- any buffer can only cast 2 Passive Group Buffs  plus 1 Active Group Buff  on any single target
- all classes have access to a number of Passive Group Buffs (including pure melee)
- there is overlap between classes, to prevent dependence on a single class

Types of Buffs:

1. Passive Self Only Buffs:
- are self only
- have a casting time
- last until canceled, dispelled, or death, but not link dead
- no recast timer

2. Active Self Only Buffs:
- are self only
- instant cast
- last for short duration
- have recast timer

3. Passive Group Buffs:
- have both single target and group versions
- have a casting time
- stack with self only buffs, but not with identical passive group buffs
- grey out when player is out of a certain range or out of group with the caster and don't function
- last until greyed out to long, canceled, dispelled or death (of caster or target), but not link death
- note: caster can cancel the buff on other players at any time.


4. Active Group Buffs (i.e. chants, songs)
- instant cast
- recast timer equal to length of the pulse (i.e. can't be twisted)
- stack with self only buffs, passive group buffs, but not identical active group buffs
- effect group members within a given range
- drops when out of group, out of range, canceled (by caster), or death (of player or caster)

Well, I think one should rip it out, not because you can't do better, but because, for reasons I stated, buffing is a generally sucky idea.  But a lot of people like it, so if you're going to have it, making the long-lasting at least makes buffing tolerable to the rest of us.

If you want continuous decision making during an actual battle, then leave it to healing, tanking, nuking, and other spells and not buffing/debuffing.

Bruce

Buffs are nice in that they allow a character to contribute something  concrete to the group as soon as they join.  Socially, it's kind of like bringing a bottle of wine to a dinner you've been invited to.  

The problem with buffs comes with downtime from the buff, dependence on a single class for a given buff, balancing pure melee vs. hybrids, buff bots,  having a single character able to buff an entire raid.

So the solution seems to be to spread buffing duties out among all the classes so that buffing can be performed more quickly and to overlap spells among classes so that there isn't dependence on a single classes. Limit the number of buffs a character can cast on another player and require that they remain in group and within a given range to get benefits.  If possible make buffs fire and forget about them.   For more powerful buffs or situational buffs implementing them as an active ability on a timer or a DAoC style chant  seems simple enough.

I'm partial to short, effective, tactical type buffs which require an active player at the keyboard to make decisions on what they should cast just like a nuker, a tank, or a healer would make similar tactical decisions during combat. I don't much care for standing around buffing for an extended length of time, and I don't think it makes for particularly good gameplay to have buffs "required" to be effective as an individual or a group.

This is more perception and how you define 'effective' than anything else.  If a buffed group can kill x creatures a minute and an unbuffed group can only kill x-y creatures a minute then the unbuffed group will not feel as 'effective' and will believe that buffs are REQUIRED to be 'effective'.

It is circular logic and will exist as long as buffs exist.

I'm not for or against AC's buffing schema. Just pointing out what is. Personally, buffing gets very old, since you either have to be a mage, or a hybrid, or use a buff bot to do anything in AC now.

Since everyone buffs, (and they do buff everything) the mobs are made in relation to being buffed.

And with third party programs, you can buff rather fast. My mage has 80+ spells he has to cast for a hunting session. With a third party app, he can do that in 4.5 minutes.

There is a solution to this, and one which I have advocated before for other reasons: scaling experience rewards based upon the level of the challenge.  You can make it so soloers get an experience bonus for killing a mob alone, rather than the other way around as many MMOGs have it now.  You could also include logic to detect any buffing during battle and also give them an additional bonus for not being buffed.

Bruce

I don't think giving a soloer an exp bonus is a good idea.  I don't think people would group at all.  Grouping is slower than soloing pretty much by definition.  A group of 7 will have 7 times the bio/smoke/soda breaks as the solo person.  Groups also take time and effort up front to form.  They need a benefit just to break even in terms of sheer efficiency.  The solution to this is making grouping FUN so that people WANT to group.  Not becuase it looks better on the spreadsheet.

Exp bonus for not being buffed makes sense as long as there is no buffing class (a system where everyone has a few buffs).  It would suck if there was a buffing class, because they would spell NEGATIVE experience.  Sure you might kill faster and make up for it, but that is not what people will see.  They will see the drop in exp per mob.  Balancing these buffs vs the percentage of exp to strip off would be very very hard though.  Not all buffs are the same, and some will be better in some confrontations than others.

Damn!  When I last played it seemed to take Nerfus Buffus a lot longer.  But that was probably because I was a low 50s non-spec mage who would fizzle a lot more on 6s than a spec mage.

I'm including extra breaks in the calculation.  Figure the time however you like; the soloer should at least be able to earn the same xp/hr. as the group individual xp/hr.  In most MMOGs, they simply cannot, because groups get xp bonuses.  Moreover, groups are inherently less risky.  They'll also be accumulating better treasure... even if the xp/hr. is the same, the treasure is more likely to be useful by SOMEONE in the group as opposed to having only some of it useful and having to sell the rest and go to the market for more stuff appropriate for you.  Finally, groups are often the ONLY way to take on even tough mobs, which although might wind up earning less xp/hr. reward the groupers with treasure the soloer could not reach at the same level.

Any way you slice it, to be "fair" soloers should be getting the bonuses, not the other way around.  Greater risk, greater reward.  Yes, this means people might group less.  So what?  The whole point is to appeal to soloers.  If you WANT to group, you still can, and get all of its benefits, with correspondingly lesser rewards.



Well, I wouldn't have a buffing class to begin with.

Bruce

I like these ideas but they would also need to be balanced to avoid griefing, e.g., I cast "do 20% extra spell damage but block 50% healing" on a tank and watch hilarity ensue. Limiting bufs to players in your party would be a start.

The other issue is that if buffs become less valuable, you have just reduced the pool of effective classes or templates; buffers will be less useful. I think we could live with this, but it is a consideration.

By "required" I mean buffs that are so good that you basically can't do without them if you wish to compete. It is a matter of perception, but IMO a reasonable person is well able to make the distinction between buffs that make someone ~50% more effective at "killing", and buffs that only make someone ~10-20% more effective. Coupled with making the buffs more tactical in nature, I'd like the ~10-20% more effective type vs. the ~50% uber type.

I think even 10-20% might be too much.  It's enough to unlock a tougher mob that might normall be able to kill an unbuffed character before running out of health itself.

Alluvian's point was that simply not making buffs "required" to access content was not in and of itself sufficient.  Let's say both a buffed and unbuffed character of level X can defeat a troll.  Okay, great.  But if the buffed character can defeat a troll in 20% less time, then many unbuffed characters will feel like they "have" to buff, because if they don't, they'll level at only 80% of the rate.

There are not really many good solutions, here.

Bruce

I don't think exp bonuses as such are really the point here.

The way I see it today, the typical passive buff class isn't taking their share of the xp.

This is partly why buffs are seen as important, they add to the number of group members helping to kill the mob, but they do not add another person to share xp with.

If we really must have passive buffs, then the buffee should share xp with the buffer as if in group. That way the addition of buffs is the same trade off as inviting another healer/caster/tank.  In an ideal world....

xp = monster effectivness / character group effectiveness

... and while we can debate the subjective questions of how to measure each part of that, it's really hard to argue that a buffbot should not add weight to the denominator.




I'd see this as a really bad idea in the context of any of the current MMORPGs.

Soloers already have a bonus, it's otherwise known as 'all the xp/loot gained in the time a group spends finding a cleric'.

And taking DAOC as an example, this bonus is what makes buffbotted soloers dominant in sub-level-45 pve.


EDIT:
I'd also add that xp management is another reason I'd like buffs to be designed to be an active cast-in-combat skill.  They encourage the buffer to be inside the group - or at the very least to be at the combat encounter, that way all the normal aggro and xp rules can balance the effects of the buffs themselves.

Well, to me this just means you shouldn't have buff classes.  It doesn't tell us anything particularly about the nature of appropriate buffs beyond that.



Nope, they don't.  If a cleric is required for a group to kill the same mobs, then it's going to be even more required for the soloer... or the soloer has all that downtime to compensate.

Bruce

Why would a soloer be killing the same mobs?

A group needs a cleric because a group needs balance across it's members because it has to kill monsters of higher level (which, like players, rise in strength exponentially) to cancel out the effect of xp division. The need to organise that balance is the penalty you pay for grouping.

Last time I looked, soloers rely on getting 100% of the xp from killing lower level mobs.



This seems like a strange jump in your logic.

You shouldn't have buff classes *because* they don't share xp? Why not just make them share xp?

Just going back to your previous arguments....



This only applies when buffs are giving benefit on the top of the xp equation (group effectiveness), without adding weight to the bottom (xp divided by n members).

In the case of a soloer competing vs one person + a full set of buffs, you are fighting more than one person. This *should* be harder. And it's no different to the fact that you will lose out to organised groups.

The balance here, should be xp sharing, and the group organisation overhead.



Again, this comes down to making adding a buffer-class to your party as much as possible like adding any other member to your party, one buffer should add the same amount of effectiveness as one of other classes regardless of whther you are in a half group party or a 10 group zerg. Then the content balance is down to how big the groups are that each encounter is designed for. Which is entirely a subjective preference.

I'd accept that in the current state there is a problem here, because you end up with a small number of buffbots having a disproportionate effect on outcomes, because they can buff a very large raiding party, and so their benefit to raid effectiveness scales up indefinitely with raid size.

This should not be hard to fix. Anti-buffbot measures such as range on buffs and maximum number of buffs do most of it. Xp-sharing though buffs  would do the rest.



This one is your best point by far.

And for me it's about saying, ok, from above we've established that the buffer role should be as much a part of the group as any other, and as a result it has to active and fun in battle.

Passive time sink buffing for generic stat boosts is, I agree, a pointless design feature.

Equivalent mobs.  Whatever to get the same exp/loot.  In most games, this is the same mob.



It depends on how the game is structured, but this is generally not true.  To cancel out the effect of xp division, groups need to kill either higher level mobs, or simply MORE lower level mobs per unit time.  But this is true totally without a cleric... they recover just as a soloer without a cleric does.  By ADDING a cleric, a group will probably gain more exp per unit of time, because they'll have the benefit of timely heals, shared damage, and so on.



No, you shouldn't have them because you have the problem you suggest; that they can't gain xp on their own so the group needs to bonus...



This applies in either case.  Go ahead and add the weight at the bottom.  Yes, the soloer kills mobs of so much experience per hour.  But a group of characters of the same level as the solor of n members can kill those SAME mobs.  Each individual can kill the same number per unit time.  So the total number of mobs is the same... in effect, the group kills more and faster.  That, ALONE, makes up for the division of experience among n members.  It's simply - 1 player can kill 1 troll in 1 minute; 2 players can kill 2 trolls in 1 minute.

But then, other factors make it NOT equal.  For instance, having a buffer in the group.  Or the fact that because of diversity and mutual support, a wider range of skills available, etc. each group member usually has LESS risk even if fighting the same mobs.  And as you suggest, it's more often the case that groups can fight HARDER mobs than the soloer can... even if the increased experience can't make up for the difference after the division among n players is accounted for, such mobs often drop better loot and allow access to higher-end content that the soloer simply cannot get to at the same level.

Any way you slice it, grouping inherently already has benefits over the soloer.  And now you want to add BUFFS to that, and experience BONUSES?  You're basically killing solo play.  You've rendered it completely unable to compete.





Sorry, I don't see what this has to do with what I said.  I was talking about buffing adding to the general problem of the advancement gap and stat inflation and so on; this has little to do with the buffer class specifically.

Bruce

I think you guys are talking details but talking around the real issue, which extends far beyond just buffing/debuffing. Im MMORPGs there is a hugh push for specialization and perfect group chemistry.

The "jack of all trades" type character rules in real life, but sucks in MMORPGs. In a MMORPG you want a character who specializes in taking damage, a character who specializes in dealing damage, and a healer. (Tank, nuker, healer)

MMORPGs must always be balanced for the optimal group. That means to make the encounter the right difficulty I, as a designer, must assume everyone is in the perfect group, buffed to maximum level, etc. (If anything, I can make it too tough, because people can always level up further)

Buffing is just part of optimal play. Having a dedicated healer is usually part of optimal play. Having someone who specializes in damage (but may have crappy armor) is also usualyl optimal play.

Buffing is just the most boring and least interactive of these.
---
A soloer is forced to be a jack of all trades, but in a group 6 specialized people will do far better than 6 well-rounded people. So the right group of 6 people can usually do more than 6 times better than a soloer on their own.

This introduces a lot of other problems as well, like having to wait around because no healers are currently available.

If you don't solo, there is basically no risk to being a specialized character. You may not have any armor, but another guy in your group specializes in keeping the enemy occupied.

IMO, simply changing enemy behavior to make specialization more risky would be a great thing. Maybe the enemies can tell that the black mage has REALLY SUCKY armor and realize it's worth their while to attack them. Or maybe they realize that Paladin has really great armor, get frustrated, and attack someone softer.

In a game where playing well rounded characters was more of an option you could solo more effectively and form a wider variety of groups without sitting on your ass waiting for the perfect chemistry.

Only game I've played where soloers kill the same level of mob as groupers is SWG. And SWGs group mechanics are generally considered to be broken. (So, for that matter, is combat in general)

If you can kill the same mobs solo as in a group - why would anyone go to the trouble of incurring the organisation overhead of grouping?



Ok, I think I understand your point better from that, but I don't see it as a problem that a specific class is better at grouping than soloing (so long as they can be approximately as effective in small or large groups). By making buffing an active skill, you remove the problem of buff classes not being able to get groups and thereby get xp, because the class can no longer be botted.



All true - but also true with any diversity between player characters. The imporvement you suggest applies to adding any class to a group that still fits in the overall balance of the group.

I don't see a problem with a group of level 30 characters together being able to access higher level content than a solo level 30. In fact I tend to think of it as being a big part of what a MMOG is about.

The changes I suggested with active buffing to bring the buffer into the group and along to the encounter are only intended to remove the special condition of buffers helping groups without taking a share of the reward (and of course, to make buffing more fun).



Maybe I'm missing some of the context of where you are coming from here, but in current MMOGs (which have depressing passive buffs), EQ is the only one I'm aware of where the most efficient way for experienced players to level alts isn't already by soloing (at least, it wasn't when I left).

I have no problem with people who choose to solo, but the gap in effectiveness that already exists (primarily due to the organisation overhead not being compensated for) in DAoC and SWG in particular locks new players out of the game because experienced players are not willing to group with them. If there is any one thing that will kill long running MMOGs like EQ, it's the fact that long standing players have no incentive to help out newbies.

So I admit it, while having soloing as an option is nice, I'm much more worried about making the game work for groups than soloists.



Only point I was making was that by strong top end limitations on what a buffer adds to a raid size army, and by keeping the buffer active in the group (and hence sharing the rewards) you reduce any such problem to the same as it is for any other class.

You are confusing what is commonly done as what one CAN do.  I already pointed out later in my post that groups often tackle higher-level mobs that the soloer can't... that's orthogonal to this point.  THIS point was that groups killing same-level mobs as the soloer still come out ahead of the soloer, even after you divide by n.

BTW, you should try more games.  Just off the top of my head, I've experienced groups taking on the same mobs as soloers in many games: UO, AC, AC2....



Because the benefits often outweigh it, such as increased safety, reduced downtime if you have a healer, better killing power if you have a buffer... and that is before the group experience BONUS many MMOGs have.



Again, you seem to be talking about something way out in left field that has nothing to do with my point.  You said buff classes can't gain exp on their own; they need a group.  Therefore you need to add all these group bonuses for the buffer, which I think kills solo play.  Therefore, I would not have a buff class.  This doesn't mean no buffs at all... just no buff classes.



Yes, it does.  So what?  That doesn't invalidate my point.  Again, you seem to be locked into this argument from the "buffer class" perspective when that was just a minor point to my general "Buffing sucks and I'm for strong solo play" theme.



That's because you're group-centric, and that's fine.  However, it basically KILLS the game for the soloer.

How about instead that a group of level 30 characters together access the SAME content than the solo at level 30?  Or maybe the soloer gets a bonus for taking a greater risk?  This doesn't effect your group enjoyment at all.  You get the benefits of the group, such as safety and diversification, in exchange for a reduced reward.  Risk versus reward... that's a big part of what a game is about, right?



I was never intending to critique the entirety of your suggestions.  Just putting my suggestins out there... solo play should be strong, and giving groups even more benefits than they already have is not appealing to me.



Yes, I think you are.  Just about every MMOG I've played has groups being more efficient... EQ, AC1, AC2, E&B, etc.



You keep bringing up this overhead and organization issue, which in my experience just isn't as big a factor as you claim.  It IS compensated for by experience bonuses, decreased risk, and so on.

Your issue about vets grouping with newbies is a wholly seperate issue.  That doesn't say people don't group in SWG because solo play is so strong... it says vets don't have a reason to group with newbs, probably for design reasons.    My bet is a lot of those vets group with other vets.  But, I admit, I have not played SWG in months, so perhaps the character of the high-level game has been quite changed.  If so, good for SWG... I'm all for strong solo play.



Well, I think you can make a game that works for both EQUALLY.  The people who WANT to group WILL group because that's what they like... not because it confers some advancement advantage.



The problem is the same for that CLASS, but it increases the problem OVERALL, because the buffing adds to the whole stat inflation, gap between high-end and low-end, etc. problem.  That's a problem with ANY buffing in a game; it has nothing to do with a buffing CLASS per se.

Bruce

Some MMORPGs are like that.  UO and Asheron's Call are notable exceptions, where "jack of all trades" types ruled.

That's true I suppose...but how old are those games? That certainly doesn't seem to be the trend.

Buffs should be replaced by auras.

In my experience the organization issue is a big time sink. Geting a group togheter usually takes ATLEAST 30 mins, more than often a lot more, it's usually faster for a healer though. And then when you're finally starting to XPing, people with essential roles starts leaving. Which means you have to pause and find a replacement.

If soloing would be just as good as teaming nobody would team, because of all the fuzz of geting a team togheter. People will always do things the most effecient way, without grouping MMORPGs would be so boring, and that's not mainly because grouping is so super fun. But because it's in groups you meet people. I would guess that 95%+ of my MMORPG friends
have been found through grouping.

In my experience... and I've been a member of many groups and a few guild raids... the time sink isn't as great as you say.  Furthermore, the bonuses far outweigh the timesink.  Perhaps you just haven't soloed a lot, and don't understand how long it takes to kill many creatures, and how long the recovery time really is.  But perhaps you're just a better soloer than I am.  Or perhaps I've been in better organized groups.



This doesn't make much sense.  If people always did things the most efficient way, and you agree that in most MMOGs grouping is more efficient than soloing, then why would anyone solo?  Which is exactly my point... I'm for strong solo play.  So if we make solo play JUST AS GOOD as grouping, then it's a choice to be made.  If you think MMOGs are boring without grouping, THEN GROUP.  GO AHEAD.  DO IT.  And you'll get equivalent reqards to the soloer.  And you'll play with your friends.  And both soloers and groupers will be happy.

I realize you worry that if solo play is too strong, no one will group.  And perhaps that's true... but how is this any worse than the reverse as it is currently, where grouping is essentially forced on people who want to play and level efficiently?  How fun do you think that is for the lone wolves out there?  You say that it won't be fun for you, though... so why not go ahead and group, and get the short end of the stick for a change just as soloers have for the past 10 years?

Bruce

Guild teams are great in every single way, but often there's not enough of available people within your lvl range to team with. The overhead of gathering a group isn't that much if you find a good group, which sticks togheter. But more than often you get stuck with people which just doesn't know what their doing.

I can agree with solo play in MMORPGs has been a tad to weak, it should imo be viable, but I don't think it should be as fast as grouping. Perhaps as fast as a just bellow average group.



I think the market where people are brought togheter is far greater than where the loner lvls just as fast. And therefor I think grouping will be encouraged in the majority of MMORPGs for years to come.

The market might be greater... but do we really know how much?  And even if so, there's still a niche to be made for a MMOG to appeals to soloers.  Remember, solo does NOT mean you don't socialize with other players... it just means you want to do quests and missions and fighting yourself.

Bruce