Buffs and Level Ranges

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Nargoul, Feb 9, 2021.

  1. Rijacki Just a rare RPer on FV and Oakwynd

    While that is the easiest concept, codewise it is likely the hardest.
  2. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    While the concept being made into working code might take a bit to line out, I do not think that is the reason why they won't end up doing it. I think that the issue would be more that how the change would be implemented would run counter to their present plan of reducing lag by removing as many unnecessary checks and calculations as possible from the game. This would add a check every time a buff is cast on every person it is being cast on to determine the character's level and then which buff should actually be applied.
    Rijacki likes this.
  3. Serdar New Member

    Removing the level requirement to recieve high level buffs is a step in the right direction. As it stands right now, the level caps for those buffs are arbitrary and pointless.

    None of this would be an issue if spells actually scaled well with mob DPS, and HPS. The level 65 damage shields, should work good on mobs that are level 65. But as you all know, they don't. The high level damage shields don't work good on high level mobs either.

    Poor spell and ability scaling is one of the top roadblocks to players actually progressing past the boring parts of leveling. Enabling high level buffs for low levels will help a little. But the best fix is to bite the bullet and fix the terrible scaling.
  4. Joules_Bianchi A certain gnome

    there are hybrid level range penalties. For instance, Ranger cast DS and Regen are acquired at a higher level on a ranger than a druid or shaman so cannot cast on level 1 the same ranks. Because of this, they can't just add a level range to the spell descriptions.

    On a semi related note, certain TLPs have made everquest team drop spell requirements by 10 levels.


    Maybe it could be time to end this silly restriction.

    Getting the spell later is enough penalty. Why, for the life of the class do we have to essentially punish the noob who asked for a buff common to level one from other classes?

    Shaman and enchater hastes do this as well. ENC can cast haste buffs on level 1 that shaman cannot.


    END the confusion?

    Also on a semi related note-

    a level 40 can group with level 60, but a 60 merc won't cast temperance anymore as merc spellsets are Overton Windowed. Give mercs ALL lower levels and have them cast the highest approriate.
  5. Joules_Bianchi A certain gnome

    CLE Aego or Dru Skin with Cleric Symbol and Ward

    CLE Vie line and Spell haste

    RNG Call of / Cloak of _______/ Predator and Tracker lines

    PAL Brells if DS component unwanted from RNG Call line, like a PLing druid requesting.

    SHM line HoS / infusion / Unity line / Haste

    ENC Haste / Mana regen

    BST regen and HP (spiritual Brawn line)

    DENA / SOW / Bih'li lines by text response /tell NPC 'dena", etc to avoid overwrite and co-component clashes.

    DRU / MAG Damage shields (and no crappy 15 minute unextended nonsense, have it last for a LotD or GTF0 and quit being a stooge.

    MAG summons.

    Perfected lev- any capable class

    Invis / camo - any capable class


    This is my normal buff stack



    and---


    something I have not seen mentioned in regards to this conversation over the years-
    How much less lag would there be serverside and in PoK/ Lobby if we all didn't have to bot AND AFK pile daily for these? On some servers I had to roll two of every class with a buff so I could put shammy buffs on the other 13 characters on the shammy's account, etc.



    oh and #humor


    BRD /tell BRD NPC "autofollow me"
  6. Cloud the Third Augur

    You know what would be really nice is if a level 120 buff is cast on a level 1 that it would auto figure out what is the highest level buff of that line which will work on them and put it on the toon instead of the 120 buff. That would save buffers a ton of trouble trying to figure out what spell they need to cast to work on their low level toon. Maybe a 120 cleric cast an hp buff on a level 1 it would downgrade and pick the highest level hp buff that is within a 30 level range. (I am just picking 30 level above max since that is how grouping range works)
    Fanra likes this.
  7. Tucoh Augur

    In current live XP the massive leveling desert between where a merc carries you to (about 65ish) or heroic (100 or whatever) to max level is a huuuuge problem.

    For new players who aren't boxing or getting carried it's an insurmountable barrier that motivates people to either play on TLP (which is probably better for new players anyway) or play a different game.

    Ways to help:
    1. Remove all buff level restrictions. Who cares if I give level 120 buffs to a level 60 and trivialize their leveling.
    2. Create a squire system (low levels can level boost to the highest party member in group and at least not be a liability)
    3. Revitalization of the hotzone system to funnel folks into hot zones
    Quatr and KushallaFV like this.
  8. Tore Lorekeeper

    As someone who recently came back after an extended break and started a new 3 box crew, having those high level buffs to expedite the point where sitting and farming/doing progression felt useful was a huge boon. Gearing is a mess where the most realistic option is spamming HAs but the cotf ones have strange swings in how dangerous they are for rewards (gribbles and marla are easy, captain ones are rough) and the more ideal option of TBM ones falls on its face as early on the game is incredibly stingy with remnants and you don't get nearly enough to reasonably upgrade your gear, not even going into the bizarre scaling of them and how they're generally rougher than cotf HAs.

    Having high level buffs meant I could ignore a lot of these issues and let them carry me to 100+ and a respectable level without having to pay the obscene bazaar prices for remnants of tranquility as TBM is pretty outdated content for the modern EQ age. The idea of making buffs scale to be worse for the 70ish to 100+ gap is crazy to me, especially for the poor saps trying to solo/molo their way up to being able to have pity invites to xp. Let the people wandering in and sightseeing have their 8k DS, please. They'll be thankful if they stick around instead of making them quit in the "nobody wants to do this content so you get to be lonely or pay the humble krono farmers for a PL" gap.
    KushallaFV likes this.
  9. FranktheBank Augur

    Again, why do people care if a lvl 1 is super powerful? I actually do not understand.
    Koshk and Ishbu like this.
  10. Hegsheoshed Augur

    At level 42 Spirit of Eagle from a druid will start to land on a character. At level 46 level 65 buffs will start to stick. In between 42 and 46 you start to see buffs between 55 to 60 start to stick. At 61 level 91 start to stick. At 65 level 101 start to stick. From 62 to 64 it is not a strict level 30 range but not having to refer to notes would be nice. I have maybe 2 or 3 sets of notes tracking the levels for buffs trying to figure it out since I have a cluttered desk filing system. Ancient buffs have a very small window of usefulness.

    Other things I would like to add here but they are fight club kind of things.
  11. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    It makes for reckless and incompetent players.
    Svann2 and Tegila like this.
  12. Act of Valor The Newest Member

    We are well past that point.
    Shanarias likes this.
  13. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    The same could be said for players that have to molo with overpowered mercs until they are ready to group with current level players.
  14. Bernel Augur

    I think the level restrictions are okay on TLPs, but should probably be done away with on live servers. The lower level game is deserted on live servers. Anyone who can get high-level buffs on their level 1 is just power leveling up. I don't think it really matters to give them ez-mode. If someone wants to experience the lower end content, they can just not get the buffs. And the top-end buffs will only make ez-mode last to the 80's or 90's anyway.

    One way to implement this is to add a special AA that someone can use which will allow high-level buffs to land on them. This AA would be part of the next expansion (or assigned to one of the existing recent expansions). This way live servers would have it, but the TLP servers wouldn't have access to it until that specific expansion was unlocked.

    But one business reason to not do this is that it would probably reduce Heroic sales. I'm sure many people buy Heroics because they don't want to spend the time to level up from the start. If these people could buff their level 1's with level 120 buffs, then they could level up much faster, They may decide to create alts by leveling up with uber-buffs rather than buying a Heroic upgrade.
    Rijacki likes this.
  15. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    Not necessarily as I know on Vaniki people would get the max level buffs they could get on a level one and return to the tutorial to work through it faster. If the level limit on buffs was removed I could see level 1's (and other low level toons) sitting in the lobby/pok to get mgb buffs (or just asking for them) in order to make leveling faster without a full on power level.

    If they removed the limit I don't see why it would matter on TLP as the max level of buffs you could get would be much lower.
    Rijacki likes this.
  16. Bernel Augur

    As a compromise, they should smooth out the buff levels from 40-61. The current limits are kooky:

    Max Spell Level : Character level required to land spell
    50 : 1 <-- Difference-=49
    51 : 40 <-- Difference=11
    53 : 41 <-- Difference=12
    55 : 42 <-- Difference =13
    57 : 43 <-- Difference=14
    59 : 44 <--- Difference=15
    61 : 45 <--- Difference=16
    63 : 46 <--- Difference=17
    65 : 47 <--- Difference=18
    93 : 61 <--- Difference of 32

    Stop the insanity! Instead, do the normal level*1.5 buff limit for those levels. So it would instead be like this:

    50 : 1 <-- Difference-=49 (this stays the same)
    51: 34 <-- Difference = 17 (beginning of 1.5x buff limit)
    53: 35 <-- Difference=18
    ...
    60 : 40 <-- Difference=20
    62 : 41 <-- Difference=21
    ..
    89 : 59 <--- Difference=30
    90 : 60 <--- Difference=30
    93 : 61 <--- Difference of 32

    There's no good reason for the characters at levels 40 to 60 to have such a low ceiling of buffs they can receive. Start giving out buffs at the 1.5x limit at level 34 and it's a smooth, consistent, and easily understood buff ceiling as they level up.
  17. Rijacki Just a rare RPer on FV and Oakwynd

    The only catch to that is those spells that different classes get at different levels, like druid and ranger getting the same things but rangers getting them later. So which would be the level used to determine the casting level range limit?
  18. Bernel Augur

    As far as I understand, it's the level of the person casting the buff that matters. So for a spell like this:

    Cure Corruption PAL/65 DRU/61 SHM/62

    I think it does a check as a 65 buff when a PAL casts it, a level 61 buff when a DRU casts it, and a level 62 buff when a SHM casts it. But the actual buff itself is the same as far as I know.
    Joules_Bianchi likes this.
  19. Rijacki Just a rare RPer on FV and Oakwynd

    As far as I understand it, it only governs when the spell can be scribed by the class, not that it changes the spell itself.
    Joules_Bianchi likes this.
  20. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    For the spell is used by multiple classes, it would be the lowest of them like it is now.