The Debuff Slot Crisis - Who to Blame and How to Fix

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Belkar_OotS, Apr 29, 2019.

  1. Belkar_OotS Augur

    Medic! The patient is suffering from a lack of debuff slots. Let us use tabloid headings to draw attention to our cause!

    Grab your pitchforks and hide your children (women have to grab pitchforks too now... Women's liberation and empowerment and such)!

    So anyone who raids with any regularity has probably experienced the intense joy of having spells and abilities bounce off an NPC because of full debuff slots at some point. So in order to min/max our characters paying attention to debuff slots is an important part of our game play. Waiting for a debuff slot to open up and hope your ability isn't ninja bounced from someone landing their ability a split second faster is something to pay attention toward.

    Making some assumptions:
    1. Developers are willing to spend at least some time to alleviate these issues, and they aren't holding debuff slots as a relic balancing point.
    2. Addressing debuff slot issues does not replace a necro/sk dot revamp.
    3. Players will make recommendations that do not change players relative power in a negative and imbalancing way.

    What would you suggest that could be reasonably implemented to help alleviate the debuff issues?
  2. svann Augur

    i blame rangers
  3. BadPallyGuildLeader Augur

    I think it is the unfortunate side effect of so many necros raiding whilst stoned. You know that whole class is a haven for those types! :D
  4. Kiras Augur

    Alliances were a huge mistake. Why they ever made them when debuff slots were already a known issue eludes me. Not a great solution, but they could at least make those lines obsolete in new expansions.
    Allayna and Yinla like this.
  5. Waring_McMarrin Augur


    Alliances are not that bad as they are 1 slot per class unlike the multiple slots per player that most other things get.
  6. ShadowMan Augur

    Not beastlords. And they were added at a time when the debuff cap was already a nightmare and before it has been resolved.
  7. Fanra https://everquest.fanra.info

    If I recall correctly, the Devs said that they were not increasing debuff slots because they would have to do it for all (or most) NPCs and that the server load for keeping track of all the debuffs was prohibitive.

    I'm not sure, but I don't think they have the ability to do it just for raid bosses. Because of that, having to keep track of more debuffs on every single NPC would bring the game to its knees. Apparently, just having the slot means the server needs to keep track of it, even if nothing is in it.

    This is all just off the top of my head, and I could be remembering incorrectly.
    Beimeith likes this.
  8. Horyuken Augur

    I'm guessing it is a very difficult fix. If it where easy they would have done something already.
  9. Bamboompow Augur

    Hard way = combine effects
    Easy way = make all mobs in future expacs 100% immune to everything.
    Boze likes this.
  10. Beimeith Lord of the Game

    This is correct.
  11. Siddar Augur

    You solve the debuff crisis by simply not having any necro's at raid.

    One necro uses 20 debuff slots two will use at least 39.

    And one necro cant hit full dps without a second for alliance.

    Its simple math really.
    Venau and menown like this.
  12. Jhenna_BB Proudly Prestigious Pointed Purveyor of Pincusions

    Is this a good time to mention a necro dot revamp would help this? :p /duck
    Venau, Strumph and Yinla like this.
  13. Jhenna_BB Proudly Prestigious Pointed Purveyor of Pincusions

    If you have rangers that keep casting Elemental, Ice and Fire Arrow debuff and anything but Frost Arrows on raids, yup! Blame them! It's a shame, the Arrow debuffs are pretty nice but I have to admit, I don't know if there's stacking issues so I tend to cast them on adds.

    Ranger Beetle dot is too good not to cast. That one spell is 10-12% of our sustained damage.
  14. Kezik Lorekeeper

    The Generals raid, in a way solves this problem. By having two Raid Npc's worth of debuff slots.
    Obviously having every raid be a balance fight with 2 bosses would not be ideal . This got me thinking, what if there was an invisible NPC tied to raid bosses to shoulder debuff overflow? Not sure if they would be able to make it work, would be a lot of stuff involved if they could. Just a thought.
  15. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    The big mistake was revamping all dot classes bar necro/SK. This has ment other classes now have decent dots to cast on the mobs.

    The adition of other class buffs/debuffs which land on the mob instead of the caster also adds to the problem.

    Combining debuffs would be helpful, tash, slow, cripple as 1 spell rather than taking 3 debuffs slots, Druid fire and ice debuffs as 1 instead of 2.
  16. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Maybe the alliances, class abilities etc could be auras instead of usng debuff slots.
  17. Brohg Augur

    This only reduces the Alliance slots, a couple procs, and (ironically) necro Dicho. Everything else gets applied to both - the debuffs & dots (besides necro Dicho) all go on both mobs.
  18. Tappin Augur


    Lol :)

    All jokes aside, this really is the only solution. The revamp will free up some slots... that will be fill up with debuffs in a nanosecond.
  19. Belkar_OotS Augur

    Running with the idea that this is the issue. Considering that the game already has "raid instances" where mercenaries are not allowed, and we already have raid NPC versus normal NPC, it would make sense that we could add extra logic that allows additional debuff slots on raid mobs in instances. Or to create a raid boss flag that allows just that mob type to get special treatment?

    They have done a good job with increasing global drops and global model types, it seems the opposite would be possible too?
  20. Lianeb Augur

    From my limited understanding of EQ programming everything is handled at or by the zone. The big bad guy you see in a raid is just a skin of the underlying zone information and the scripts the zone it’s self is running. So when we talk about a boss mob having a debuff limit it seems safe to say from a programming perspective (if I am correct in assuming how it’s programmed) that there are certain files that are always referenced as global scripts the zone runs. If buff slots for mobs are in these global scripts it would not be easy to modify it to reference information for only raid mob. It could be done but also doesn’t seem easy and could theoretically break more than it fixes.

    This all assumption mainly based on things I have heard the dev say or post.