Why aren't you buffing?

Yet it would make it more stressful for me, who likes the current style,

Sounds like you've just found people who aren't good buffers - or decide, due to your role on the team, that you're not a priority for buffing (plus, see reply to (a) )
You assume. Some people don't want to roll defenders/corruptors because they're "squishy" and not generally high damage. Some people don't like playing any sort of support. Some people prefer the generally more forgiving Brute/Scrapper (IE, high HP, higher defense/resistance, mez protection, higher damage) playstyle. Making these buffs PBAOE isn't going to make a whit of difference to them - and will annoy some of us that DO enjoy them currently, to where current defenders/corrupttors/controllers (who do, after all, have a buff/debuff secondary) don't get played. You'd be working *against* your assumed end.

And yeah, I'll add my voice to those not seeing this so-called "City of Brutes." I see a fairly reasonable mix of characters.

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You've probably got more experience playing buffers than I do, and there's a reason for that - my problem with the mechanics, not the squishiness. As I said, it's just my opinion of what would make buffers more appealing to play, which happens to reasonably match the opinion of the original poster. You don't agree and you have voiced your opinion, as I have mine. All in good fun, considering we're in a For Fun - Suggestions forum.

The last time I tried ITF we had six brutes/scrappers, a blaster and me (a dom). Maybe it's just the euro servers but this happens alot, particularly in mid levels. As you said, maybe ppl just don't like rolling squishy toons and favor brutes and scrappers. Me, I still say it's the unfriendly mechanics.

Just as a side point, you are neglecting the group of players who enjoy playing squishy support characters but do not want to play buff bots.

I love support characters (out of 10 characters half have buff/debuff sets, 2 defenders, a corruptor, a mastermind and a controller) but I cannot stand sets that require me to manually rebuff the entire team every 4 minutes. A move away from single target buffs would make it possible for me to the five buff/debuff sets I currently refuse to play (Thermal, Sonic, Cold, Force Field and Kinetics). I would love to have a Fire/Thermal Corruptor (or Defender if the devs ever get around to actually porting it) for concept reasons but I cannot stand the set.

Not everyone who plays support likes the same playstyle that you do.

No, that's his position. I'm pointing out that's not the only one, and that the change would be *detrimental* to those who enjoy playing them currently.

Personally, I think we'd see a net *loss* of buffers.

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I'm not sure I agree with that. You're assuming that the number of players who enjoy the current buffing outweighs the number who like support characters but can't stand the current buffing mechanics. Personally I play debuffers because I find the buffing mechanics in this game to be awful. If the buffing mechanics were more reasonable (to me) I'd probably have a 50/50 split between buffers and debuffers.

And you're neglecting another group like me that can buff but are not pigeon holed into buff bots either.

Or your style too.

If a happy middle position could be found that doesn't lead to nerfing buffs or increase rech/end/etc., then it should be explored. Based on the dev's history for game balance, I don't see them just making AOE buffs out the single target ones as an option.

I'm also including those who would go "Hey, remember the "We're not changing powers again" from jack? You did it again." /quit. And there are some who would do it on principle.

I personally may not go that far - but it would possibly lead to that end for me, as that sort of change would make some of my favourite characters very un-fun.

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Buff Bot was a poor word choice on my part since the term has so many negative connotations.

However, I believe that the term is actually accurate to the play style imposed by those powers. To get full use from the shields I have to, every four minutes, do the following actions:
1. Select team mate
2. Cast first shield
3. Cast second shield
4. GOTO 1

This is something that would be trivial for a bot program to do (obviously actually making one to do it would be a violation of the EULA) so during that portion of the game I am effectively doing the work of a bot. How is that engaging gameplay?

With every other non-toggle/pet power in the game there are critical choices to be made regarding when to use the power and who to use it on. To me this is what constitutes engaging gameplay, having to make decisions about how to use the power. The short recharge buffs fail that test. There might, under certain circumstances, be a decision to not use the powers at all but for the most part endurance and casting time are readily available enough that the core gameplay for those powers comes down to: maintain them on all teammates.

This is one of the things that bugs me whenever this topic comes up. People seem to take it for granted that changing the buffs to AoE would require a nerf to end/recharge/something and I just do not buy it. The only one I see that would need nerfing in that situation is Speed Boost but that's only because I think that the current version of Speed Boost should be nerfed anyway (which is a completely different and even more controversial topic).

Suppose you took the current powers (lets say for Force Field) and changed it from a single target buff to an AoE team buff that doesn't affect the caster (yes, I said team, more on this later) without changing anything else. Would it break the game? From the point of view of your teammates nothing changes, they still have the shields up with the same power level and need to come back to you every 4 minutes to refresh them. From your point if view what changes is that you now spend 4.14 seconds and 15.6 endurance every 4 minutes refreshing the shields instead of 28.98 seconds and 109.2 endurance. Yes, it does seem like a significant amount but can you really tell me, with a straight face that the game is so tightly balanced that this change to, essentially, activation time and endurance cost of a power you cast every four minutes will really break the balance?

Similarly for recharge there is no benefit to casting the power multiple times on the same character, it just refreshes the duration. Since you can't effectively cast the power more than once every four minutes anyway does it matter if the power recharges quickly?

To me the balance objective of these powers should be:
If you are teamed with a person who has the power and are located in the same general area as them you should get the benefit, if you leave the team or move to far away from the power owner for to long the benefit expires.

The current powers meet that objective and changing them to a team based non-caster affecting AoE would not change the balance with regards to that objective. Now, this is costing the powers some flexibility in a league based environment but I do not think that is necessarily a bad thing. There is a line drawn between team buffs and league buffs and adding these to the team buff side encourages more care with how different characters are distributed through the league (i.e. don't but all of your bubblers on the same team).

Now there are two specific types of other buff to consider: Mez Protection Buffs and Speed Boost

Mez protection buffs I think are ok as is. The design intent for them seems to be reactive use to break a mez on an ally and they seem well balanced for that. Changing them to AoE would probably not be to bad (especially considering the existence of Clarion) but it is probably not needed.

Speed Boost is a special case. I suspect the design intent was to use it re-actively to help a friend who got hit by a heavy debuff but the problem is it is way to good for what it does. Personally I'd do the following:
1. Make it a non-caster AoE and increase duration to 4 minutes (for the reasons discussed above)
2. Remove the movement increase (I like the movement boost but it causes problems for a lot of people)
3. Decrease the recharge bonus to +25%

I'd honestly advocate doing number 3 even if the first 2 items were not done. I really feel that Speed Boost is to good for it's recharge/duration ratio.

Eh, I've never really got this attitude. It was a silly promise to make on Jack's part but it's also the sort of promise that I as a player would never believe anyway. This is an MMO, powers will always change, if the dev team is competent they will change for the better.

Now people might disagree with the dev team as to what constitutes "better" but that's another story. To me "better" means improving the balance. If a power is over-performing then, yes, it needs to be nerfed and ideally sooner rather than later.

Why? I've seen people stating or implying this and I really, really do not get it. To me powers becoming easier to us e= more fun.

I started out playing a lot of buffers, but over time it just got too tedious. The powerful (though decaying) Incarnate buffs have greatly diminished the utility of buffing sets. When Incarnate buffs become universal the incentive to play buffing characters will pretty much go away.

Since the game came out there's been a calculus involving the amount of endurance required to activate a power, along with its duration and magnitude. I think the Incarnate powers change that calculus sufficiently to make a change in that basic relationship.

The duration of single-target buffs should be increased by a factor of five to ten, without increasing the endurance cost. Basically, they should last for the duration of a mission. Area buffs should be increased in duration as well, but perhaps by only two to five. If you want to limit such buffs to team members only to avoid abuse in leagues, I could go along with that.

If you've got 24 characters in a league, you can easily have six characters with Barrier, which means they can fire one off every 20 seconds. In that case you really have no use for a Force Field or Cold defender. On trials you'd be far better served by replacing those characters with blasters, defenders, controllers and dominators with debuffs, slows, area immobilizes and trial-specific damage types.

You might talk me into having the duration increase with level (so that a level 1 bubble lasts 4 minutes, but a level 50 bubble lasts 40). But why bother? Why make FF defenders a bore from the get go?

The idea that some characters should just stand around and buff other characters is bogus. The reward structure of the game is completely dependent on dishing out damage. And from my reading of the comics and watching movies, there's not much precedent for buffers -- the vast majority of characters deal damage directly, or perform tricks with their powers. They don't stand around healing other characters, or putting force fields around them, or preventing them from getting mezzed.

The whole buffer/healer mindset is an artifact of D&D and the reductionist class-based concepts promulgated by Gygax et al. Buffers are a response to the demands of game mechanics, and not a broadly represented archetype of literature and film.

Which is different how from say my scrapper on teams:
1. Select target
2. punch, punch
3. punch, punch, target dies
4. GOTO 1

Or my blaster:
1. Select target
2. pew,pew,pew
3. pew,pew,pew, target dies
4. GOTO 1

Or my MM:
1. BG mode
2. AF tank
3. Take nap
4. GOTO 1 j/k

Anyhow, IME, there is no real difference from toons in actions - we just click powers on targets, be it buffs or be it damage or be it whatever, with the exception of some AOEs.

And the crux of our difference. Buffs to me are strategic game play. Should I use that CM now or wait, in which case I could be mezzed or killed and then missed my chance to use my buff. I have never seen a case where all buffs are needed all the time. I find it hard to believe that you don't think there is anything wrong with a team with a cold, therm, FF, and emp for example and buffs were AOE based - all those buffs on all team mates, practically non-stop unless things like end and rech are not affected. Imagine a league now with multiple buffing toons all hitting AOE buffs. That would be insanely overpowered IMO.

Okay, taking this in one large chunk. In short, how can you not see rech/end or nerf if the powers affect 7 others instead of 1? And I mentioned aboved, imagine leagues now with all those AOEs going off. I am in the camp that the devs would balance the AOEs as AOEs rather than single target powers. I guess we will just differ on that unless there are changes that show differently.

And a minor note on the current iTrials in that I agree that buffing toons seem to be in danger there. But so far, toons like my emp def or cold corr have no issues joining. Maybe on some servers, this is not the case. But the balance is that these are iTrials and the incarnate powers are not working at low levels, which buffing powers do. I still believe that players will play what they want and that buffing toons are not for everyone.

Because I have control over who I do and don't want to buff. There are reasons not to buff, I don't like having to wait for the whole thing to refresh if I miss someone - I don't *like* the AOE buff idea in the slightest.

That aside from potential changes in things like strength, END cost and the like.

"Easier to use and more fun" is solely an *opinion,* one I do not share.

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*snort*

Right. Because everyone will start at 50. You DO know there's the rest of the game to consider, right?

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I wrote a long reply to this but accidentally hit the back key and lost it. I will try and rewrite it later. Sorry.

TBH, it's okay Adeon. I don't think we are going to convince each other to the other side unless the devs gives us more clues as to whether buffs would be changed via nerf, end, rech, etc. or not at all. Changing them to AOE's would ruin game play for some and improve for others. And really, not much more to say on that.

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Heh, well kiiiinda, but I am thinking something a little more comprehensive and stronger...but good point.

I chuckled when the OP made the suggestion (because of how often its been shot down before), but I the Bladerunner reference took the cake.

Right. Nobody plays it. My characters have just been automatically and randomly coating themselves in ice, bubbles or flames. Just walking along inside a mission and *poof* I'm in an icy suit. The only way I can get away from it is to solo, and even then I'll find it's happened as I'm going down the street, or in wentworths, or paying SG base rent.

Can't be from people actually playing the sets, nope.

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So? I play an energy/devices blaster. That doesn't mean I wouldn't appreciate changes to both sets, and in fact I'd welcome those changes.

I really don't understand your resistance to the idea of change, Bill, particularly the need to debunk suggestions that are borderline wishful thinking and have 0,001% chance of actually getting implemented.