My two cents is that it turned out to be a poor design choice for most targetable buffs cast to be persistent outside of a group or raid. Something like Spirit of Wolf is fine, (SoW for CR plz?), as would be other utility buffs like water breathing or ultravision. But stacking combat buffs from several different classes that aren't in your group and that might be many levels above you just means that characters will run around vastly more powerful than they should be compared to the way the content was designed. I should admit that I use this mechanic to its full advantage. I am an altaholic and have several toons on each of my 3 accounts that I've leveled to at least 60. Getting buffed to the max does make those first 60 levels go extremely fast on live servers. Then, once you can get level 115 buffs, all kinds of content that would otherwise be challenging for lvls 65-100 becomes almost trivial as well, and you don't have to worry as much about group balance if you can get the best long duration buffs from all classes in the Guild Lobby from mgbs before you go out. Long story short, the buff restrictions are complex, and that can be annoying, but with 20/20 hindsight, it really never should have been something to deal with. Want shaman buffs? Have a shaman in your group.
It’s intended difficulty was with a group. Those have been on the endangered list, since the Bush era. Remove the cap, make my life easy. It’s a game, open up the fun.
Gonna be trival anyways since you can get a level 1 merc and not have to pay til like 10 or something like that. Andarriel
The OP wants to have tens of thousands more HP, Mana/Endurance as well as thousands more in attack power and defense than they would otherwise have at level 1. Making it so that they can kill mobs 20-30 levels higher than them. The existing restrictions are fine.
I kinda wish they'd consolidate it to <50 can get 65 and below, then start the 30lecel thing. But that's just from the buffer standpoint. I also wish that if a single target spell will land, the group version will too even if the group version is above the cutoff and the ST isn't. It's the same buff just MGB-able so people can help the lowbies without them needing to beg for ST buffs. That's just a QoL thing imo, the ST and GRP spells should both have the same cutoffs. Making it so up to 50 can get 65 buffs isn't a huge difference in benefits to the lowbies, bit it is half the buffs needed to cast, especially if say you have a group that's both above and below the cutoff (yes, there'd still be that issue at 50, but still be fewer overall. Buffs started getting statcrazy well after 65, so what's the difference? I forget when they did start getting that way though exactly, 75, 80?
On Live, trying to buff a character lower than 50 becomes an exercise of 'will this land, will that land"? moving up or down on the level of buffs. It's not done often enough that you want to keep a spellset for it. It would be nice if there was a simple x # levels above or a certain point where everything below a certain level works for buffs up to a certain level even if it was <50 can get 50 and below. But the <50 can get... would likely adversely affect the TLPs and too much "if this [server-type], then..." can cause other issues in coding when adding anything. Though it could be linked to the expansion unlock.
It's kinda a rude awakening which could cause more quitting, to go from -mob hits me for .000001% of my health to -mob hits me for 1/3 my health. There does need to be a buffer area, but early buffs didn't have the huge power increase between what currently lands on a 1, or a 40, vs say OoW buffs. The big power surge was later so while 65 buffs instead of a 45 buff would be ok and streamline things, a 120buff would be game breaking at those levels.
I like anything that's easy. I think they should do a bunch to make 70-100 less miserable too. Buff mercs in that range, better buffs, new defiant gear, and massive experience bonuses. Get people to the point they can interact with the content people do play and you will have more customers that stay and play.
Probably a pain in the to code and already mentioned, but I would like it if a 120 buff casted on a level one player just gave them the level appropriate buff.
Are you saying that more people quit because of your invented 'rude awakening' than quit because merc leveling 60+ is awful? Because I would disagree. If mercs could get lvl 120 buffs at 70, they could probably continue to solo/duo content which means a person could actually progress.
At 70, mercs (and players) can get up to level 111 buffs. At 75, it goes to 120 (current max). TBL stat food and drink (the max non-level restricted) can make up the ground lost in hps/mana between those two. So it's not just overall buffs. What starts happening in the 60s is that the power of regeneration and especially damage shields starts to fall behind the power of npcs, even with the massive bump in buffs available starting at 61 (who can get level 93 buffs). You can really get this when leveling a level 69 character to level 70. The max mage ds available to you goes from 741 (109 rk 3) to 5187 (111). (regen goes up as well, but not nearly as much as ds) You kind of have to know this and know to search out the single target 111 buff as a level 70 character. But once you do know this, the 70s aren't as bad as you thought they were (the power jump in ds does start to fizzle out in the late 70s/early 80s). What would be nice is if they extended the ds/regen recalibrations down to level 91 (thus bumping the numbers from 91 to 110). This would give players (who still need to get the buffs) an easier time with these more difficult levels and hopefully save some frustration.
I'm referring to the ppl that want 120 buffs at 1. A Merc tank is nothing compared to what that would be like.
There are damage caps, so I don’t see how it would be problematic. It’s mostly a QoL thing, there’s a post in the Support forum that lists out the matrix for buff level restrictions.
EQ2 is like that. There are only a few things that cast outside of group. While it does cut down on the "buff plz" spam, it doesn't really encourage grouping the way you think. When I played, some classes had a harder time getting groups because they didn't have buffs and some potential groups would be a lot pickier about grouping because they couldn't optimise the buffs. And the class balance arguments were even more epic because how much better a perfectly optimised raid group would be vs those who did normal grouping or catch-as-catch-can.
Buffs that make the lvl1 basically invincible erase need for the Merc. I'm not talking DMG output, I'm talking defense, hme, Regen etc. Damage caps are irrelevant
I am totally down with removing the level limits for buffs. Part of the "fun" of having high level characters is being able to go back and WTF own older content. To me that includes helping low level characters blow though the early content. Why not make that a little easier, stream line the code base, If you are a purest and want the original 'hard' experience then play on a TLP where there are no high level buffs, or you know just don't get buffed.
