Buff Durations

Chicago

What is everyone's thoughts on buff durations? from what i have seen from the livestream class showcases it seems to me that buffs are a short periodic window either as a burst window or as a defensive CD, what is everyone's opinions on this, should buffs last longer?, Should we be able to collect buffs from other classes, Should world buffs be a thing?

i would guess this months livestream may answer some more of these questions as we are going to see the bard, personally i hope that intrepid stay faaaaaaaaar away from any sort of world buff meta, as for class specific buffs, i would like to see some longer lasting buffs not just the burst window type that we have seen so far.

if anyone has seen any other info on this please link it for me to check out, have a great day guys!

ExiledByrd

I'm not a fan of long lasting buffs from skills. Keep long buffs to crafted consumables or node activities. Class and skill buffs should be short and impactful.

iccer

An example of what I don't want to see is ESO's implementation of buffs.

From my memory, they just had like 20 sec cooldown, and you'd basically buff up, spam attacks, re-buff, spam attacks, which was incredibly boring to do.

Buff skills should be limited to support classes mostly (bard), while buffs for other classes should come from certain procs, after using abilities, or maybe certain ability combos. They should have short duration, a few seconds at most.
Defensive CDs, I'm all for it, but only for certain classes, like tank, but again, it should be a shorter buff, that you use when you expect to take a lot of damage.
They should be reactionary, rather than something you just keep up constantly in between attacking.

arkileo

Short mid-combat buffs are fine, ones that last a few seconds. I do prefer having long-term buffs. They add to class fantasy, and being able to buff people in the world builds community, sort of like waving to someone as you pass.

My problem is short-term buffs that are meant to have 100% uptime. WoW Classic's paladin blessings are especially bad, with 5min durations until they reached a certain level.

Ideally I think buffs that are meant to have 100% uptime should last as long as your average event/dungeon. That way the only reason to reapply them is if someone died.

Ludullu

A range of length on the self-buffs (from a just a few secs up to 20min) and a short duration on bard buffs that require constant activity from the bard.

Azherae

I don't like short buff durations generally, for MMOs, but I like them for MOBAs, and don't mind them when the MMO is like BDO and is so Action-Combat heavy and 'tactics' are less of a thing in lowman fights because those don't add anything in that case really.

Short buffs are usually incidental, not worth any mana or casting time compared to just hitting more things, and make the play flow of buffing classes (and sometimes the targets) very rotation heavy. You can't justify having a short buff with a high cost. Those usually are so powerful that they're not really a choice, so you're back to the Action Combat style game flow of 'I'm definitely going to use this, I will have the resources for it'. I guess it still works, but the skill floor raise is kind of rough.

I also don't like them because if you're not careful it waters down the PvE. If buff durations are too short, you don't have to worry about a mob or a mob group having their buffs up without you seeing those buffs be up. Sure, a long duration buff that your support just casts 3-10 times in a session feels like just maintenance on our side, but if Mobs are designed from the same base as players (this is what I'm used to), it matters a lot more to them.

But making the buffs 1-3 minutes increases the support class busywork to achieve the effect on the mobs, so I prefer to have it even longer for simplicity, like '5-10 minute buffs'. Not too much cost or strain to players, helps a bit with the learning curve, and empowers mobs a bit.

Also, assuming that players' dispel skills have a decently long cooldown relative to standard mob-TTK, a support-class mob might have multiple of these up, and the players then have to deal with at least some of them due to the lack of ability to just dispel them all, increasing support-mob usefulness and therefore encounter variety even in non-boss PvE.

This is a thing I feel has been lacking in games I personally have played recently.

Chicago

Azherae wrote: »

I don't like short buff durations generally, for MMOs, but I like them for MOBAs, and don't mind them when the MMO is like BDO and is so Action-Combat heavy and 'tactics' are less of a thing in lowman fights because those don't add anything in that case really.

Short buffs are usually incidental, not worth any mana or casting time compared to just hitting more things, and make the play flow of buffing classes (and sometimes the targets) very rotation heavy. You can't justify having a short buff with a high cost. Those usually are so powerful that they're not really a choice, so you're back to the Action Combat style game flow of 'I'm definitely going to use this, I will have the resources for it'. I guess it still works, but the skill floor raise is kind of rough.

I also don't like them because if you're not careful it waters down the PvE. If buff durations are too short, you don't have to worry about a mob or a mob group having their buffs up without you seeing those buffs be up. Sure, a long duration buff that your support just casts 3-10 times in a session feels like just maintenance on our side, but if Mobs are designed from the same base as players (this is what I'm used to), it matters a lot more to them.

But making the buffs 1-3 minutes increases the support class busywork to achieve the effect on the mobs, so I prefer to have it even longer for simplicity, like '5-10 minute buffs'. Not too much cost or strain to players, helps a bit with the learning curve, and empowers mobs a bit.

Also, assuming that players' dispel skills have a decently long cooldown relative to standard mob-TTK, a support-class mob might have multiple of these up, and the players then have to deal with at least some of them due to the lack of ability to just dispel them all, increasing support-mob usefulness and therefore encounter variety even in non-boss PvE.

This is a thing I feel has been lacking in games I personally have played recently.

Great points I agree with almost everything!

I typically think any self buff should be able to be kept up indefinitely, not including things like short term duration buffs that are more of a CD like + 25% damage for 8s etc

The proc effects from weapon combos could probably do with a little increase in length, I know some of the passive skills trees add this but they are just a bit short in my opinion

As for team buffs, I think whilst grouping with X player, that the buffs should remain up with long enough duration to finish a dungeon and not end up like a classic wow paladin sort of buff bot, but maybe whilst not grouped with the player the buffs could have a shorter 10-15 minute duration to prevent exploiting buffs to trivialize content

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

But making the buffs 1-3 minutes increases the support class busywork to achieve the effect on the mobs, so I prefer to have it even longer for simplicity, like '5-10 minute buffs'. Not too much cost or strain to players, helps a bit with the learning curve, and empowers mobs a bit.

What if the 5-10 min was a base lvl of a buff with lower effects, while activity in fights increased/changed said effects? Would that be smth interesting?

Azherae

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

But making the buffs 1-3 minutes increases the support class busywork to achieve the effect on the mobs, so I prefer to have it even longer for simplicity, like '5-10 minute buffs'. Not too much cost or strain to players, helps a bit with the learning curve, and empowers mobs a bit.

What if the 5-10 min was a base lvl of a buff with lower effects, while activity in fights increased/changed said effects? Would that be smth interesting?

Not for me personally, but this is because I have a jaded opinion after more than a decade of addressing player complaints over the way complexity is presented to them.

This works for short buffs, but is not intuitive enough for long ones, and in a PvX game can lead to buffs dropping at unexpected times.

This is compounded by what happens to the buff timer while the player is lagged or disconnected. A party-wide buff that has any chance of being desynchronized despite being long, is a complaint point that doesn't seem to me, to need to exist.

It is not one of my preferred ways of adding dynamism or complexity even if I personally don't dislike it.

George_Black

60s
2min
4min
15min
That's for buffs and selfbuffs.

Atk abilities should proc small duration buffs, like 3s-5s windows for combo chains, with cooldowns on the procs.

Also IS should ignore ESO for everything related to mmos.
I enjoyed eso as a solo adventure with the optional coop when I wanted to farm my pvp gear and raiding gear.
But the combat has many negatives and the burst/buff-up gameplay wasnt looking good.

JamesSunderland

I personaly want to see a reasonably wide range of buff durations/cooldowns based on the buffs power,
like all types of skills they must have trade-offs for balance in relation to the rest of the game's aspects.

Examples:

Rogue Skill, Maximum Sprint: Increases your movement speed by 100% for 12 seconds, 6 minutes cd.

Ranger Skill, Scouter's Pace: Increases your movement speed by 20% for 1 minutes, 6 minutes cd.

Bard Skill, Windwalkers' March: Increases your party's movement speed by 10% for 5 minutes, 6 minutes cd.

Bard Skill, Windriders' Trampling: Increases your party's movement speed by 50% for 20 seconds, 12 minutes cd.

Arya_Yeshe

skills = fast durations
consumables = fast and long

Food should buff for at least one hour, or even hours