Stop the tedium! [Constant Buff Recast]

This is specifically in relation to buff sets that have shields (Sonic, FF, Therm etc). it just seems like these are a part of the sets that are taken for granted. Everyone assumes that if you take the set, you will have the shields and use them. For good reason, they're great powers and you should take them, and you should use them.

The issue is that with a 4 minute duration, single target, two shields to cast... it's just tedious. It isn't interesting gameplay. It isn't something challenging to separate the good players from the bad. It's just tedious.

I'm just curious if this particular point has ever been addressed by the devs and if so, what they're thoughts on it were?

Personally, I would love to see these given the same treatment as the mastermind pet buffs. Big huge end cost, and effect everyone within a certain range. Really, how would this hurt gameplay? I can think of a lot of ways it would make gameplay more enjoyable for people who have said sets, and I just don't see a downside.

Not a big deal, not gamebreaking or anything, I'm just curious if the devs have ever talked about this particular point. Tedious recasting of a baseline buff for your set does not equal engaging gameplay. Not saying it should be changed for the things like forge, thaw, etc. Those are fine how they are, just things like the shields that are the core utility and really should be kept up most of the time on everyone in the team.

I agree with you.

Dev thoughts: Their strength/utility is balanced in part by their duration.

Player thoughts: Don't like it, don't play a buff set. It's really *not* that tedious. Prioritize a bit, as well.

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I agree... In part. Think it all the way through, though. 4 minute duration, minimal cast time (although, I will readily admit, it is annoying on full teams, basically activating 14 powers every 4 minutes), fairly minimal endurance cost. Then, don't worry about where those teammates ARE for the next 4 minutes until you see the icons flashing.

Now, if it was a PBAoE toggle with a massive endurance cost (regardless of how huge the radius was)... You'd have to account for the huge endurance cost on top of your other powers, and constantly try to keep 7 people in the range of the AoE. I'll pass on this, thanks.

What I would suggest (if it's possible in the existing game engine) would be to have it operate similar to the Sonic debuff (I forget the name at the moment), have the shields a toggle on your allies, with a fairly minimal endurance cost. This way, it would be MUCH easier to keep all of the team within range (I'm not sure what the range IS on the Sonic debuff, but the only time I can think of that I've seen it de-toggle other than when someone died, was when changing maps, or changing floors within a map), and while the endurance cost would be noticeable (especially on a full team), it wouldn't be as huge of a drain as some of the other toggle powers like Shadow Fall and Suppress Pain.

(Edit: I just realized when you said MM pet buffs, you meant the upgrade powers. That would be somewhat better than the toggle method I thought you meant, but brings up the issues Bill brought up.)

IMHO.... change the 2 minute ones to 4 minute ones. Buffing 7 people every 2 (or less) minutes, assuming 2 seconds per buff, which is 14 seconds, out of 120 seconds, that's over 10% of the time buffing. That's all.

I like it the way it is. I prefer to actually have to cast some of my powers rather than have Fireballs fly out automatically every 8 seconds. It is nice to have Hot Feet and Blazing Aura ticking, but I also like to be able to actively participate by using Blaze and Fire Sword. Managing my buffs as well as my blasts/controls is part of what makes defenders, corruptors, controllers, and MMs fun for me.

I would like to see ID and O2 Boost bumped to 2 minutes. Maybe also Clarity, CM, and Antidote.

I so agree.

My favourite team character is a Kinetics/Psy defender. But she would be much more fun it would be if I didn't have to worry about speed boosting everyone every 2 minutes. I deliberately did not take Increase Density, because having to maintain a second 1 minute duration buff on some characters was just too tedious for words.

Lack of endurance is effectively never an issue in replenishing the buffs. Range can be, when party members wander off. The primary reason why defenders cannot self buff has been due to mechanics, not game design. So let's just replace these annoying targetted buffs with a low endurance PBAoE toggle buff which has a decent duration once activated. The net effect will be similar, save for all the tedious replenishing.

It would also improve defender solo survivability (which is certainly an issue for some sets).

I feel that any changes to the buff regimen need to be considered very carefully. Any system that promotes the "Buffbot" habits from my DAOC days would be worse for teaming than "Fillerz pls!!1!" and AE monkeys ever were.


The last thing we need is every TF having two spots filled with buffbot characters being run on somebody's second computer, doing nothing but auto-firing a few buffs while being set to follow the main tank.

Not so horrible, but still *supremely* grating to my nerves, is that if most buffs got turned into 5 minute PBAOE buffs, the active buffers would turn us into City of "Gather!!" inside of a week. It's bad enough that we have the early-game legacy of "Wait here why I pull. HEY! WTF why you not wait and why the bad guys all feared/stunned/Ice Slicked and now my Tank e-peen job useless?". Turning teams into an endless argument of "Come over here for buffs that you don't want! OMG COME HERE! WE NOT MOVE UNTIL YOU COME HERE!" would ruin all but the most civil SG teams.

I *like* PuGs. But they are bad enough as it is. Lets tread very very carefully here folks.


(Writer's note: I only have one high level Kinetics character. But, I like to play him when I want a truly frenetic game experience. buffbuffhealbuffbuffFulcrumattherighttimebuffTrans ferencehealbuffbuff *toss in an aoe for giggles* buffhealbuff etc. I actually kind of like the endless buffing of trying to keep a team at the fullest +rech, health, end, status prot, and run speed that I possibly can. YMMV.)

Here's an idea : why don't people who dislike buffing just play other powersets, rather than try to nerf buffing powersets for everyone?

I'd be happy with bumping Speed Boost to 4 minutes.

I'm in sort of the same boat. I've got a Cold Defender I really like for the debuffs, but the shields are indeed somewhat tedious. They're such a strong buff, though, that I don't really like to go without using them unless the team's defense is already taken care of. (Plus they obscures the lovely female characters I run with, but that's another matter.)

The answer, as I see it? Popmenus. Two ways you can do it: make a menu for each shield or other short-duration buff and select the teammate within the menu, or make a menu for each teammate and select the buff within the menu.

You still have to go through the process of buffing each teammate who wants it, but now instead of having to select each one or deal with friendly_target_next in a moving battle, you can just iterate through keystrokes and it'll take a lot of the annoyance out of the procedure.

Suggestions regarding tedious bubbling have been brought up quite frequently. I think it is the best to limit the discussion to bubbles and shields. Powers like clear mind is very likely not intended to be applied to the whole team constantly. I think speed boost needs its own discussion. While the OP is quite specific to buffs like bubbles, it seems like discussions of other powers pop up as well.

I think bubbling every 4 minutes is not really terrible most of the time. Technically, it represents some sort of balance as the player needs to spend time to bubble. On the other hand, I don't think force field and sonic would become too good without such constant re-bubbling. Maybe, such balance is not really playing much of a role. I think the force field MM is really terrible. I feel like after I'm done bubbling everybody and my pets, I've to bubble again. Of coz, the counter argument is that I don't need to bubble everything, just bubble what is needed. But I would love to bubble everything, as bubbling is nearly what force field can do most of the time.

I think the main issue of the suggestion is not that much about the motivation, but the execution of the idea: how should the bubbling be done? One thing that people hate, as seen from this thread already, is that they don't want to "gather for RA." So, how to implement some sort of AoE bubbling without asking people to gather while keeping the bubbling range reasonable (maybe the challenge is not that much about cooking up a scheme to do it, but if it involves new tech and coding, people tend to jranger)? Another thing is the endurance cost. Bubbling everybody and all the pets can cost a lot of endurance in a short period of time. Also, you need to retain the ability to bubble single target such that you can bubble a person if it misses the AoE bubbling.

I'm torn on this issue.

Firstly, I suck at buffing. I suffer from "scrapper lock" no matter what toon I'm playing. Also I'm usually on speed run teams, where everybody has SuperSpeed and are running all over the place. So, it is pretty hard for me to apply and maintain buffs in such situations. Probably, due to that, my fire/kin is least played character I have.

Secondly, all shield buffs, SB, ID, O2, etc. aren't restricted only to team members. You can buff anyone you want. What I'm afraid of, is if devs changed these buffs to toggle or to PBAoE, these buffs might get restricted to team members only. Mind Link, leadership toggles anyone?

Nevertheless, I'd very welcome increase in duration of SB, ID, etc. even if would cost more endurance to apply.

If the duration of the buff was increased, the strength of the buff would be decreased to balance it.

The short duration is what allows those buffs to be so potent. What you're essentially saying here, whether you realize it or not, is: "I want my character's powers to be gutted so I don't have to use them as often."

You are NOT going to get shields with the same values as FF or COld shields that last 20 minutes, it's just not going to happen. You MIGHT get shields that have the same value as Maneuvers for 20 minutes though.