Save Time and Players: No More Rank Buffs

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Ninelder, Aug 21, 2019.

  1. Ninelder Augur

    I know I have mentioned this before in several Beta testings, all to no avail. But I will ask the question again, this time earlier:

    Please stop making 3 versions of every buff spell.

    It will save you a lot of time on something that only griefs the players. We already have this with certain spells, like mage summons. I can only imagine that you do this so you don't have to make and test every rank item on every version of every pet. This will enable you to skip testing 3 versions of buffs too, while simultaneously making the following improvements.

    Its super annoying. Buffing classes on raids already have to do a full round of buffs on every event win and again at the next prep, then again for every dip that went LD or got swapped in from deck. If the buffers have different ranks of spells then you are possibly doubling the annoyance on classes that don't have time to go to the bathroom.

    It does not make sense. A person or group has 5 hps left on vie or a chanter rune that blocks them from getting another 100k worth of damage mitigation just because of the rank? Its ridiculous.

    I don't want to hear the clerics complain... AGAIN. Every expansion everybody's robot gets a full complement of rank 2 buffs just because that player leveled. To further infuriate the cleric players sometimes get asked to drop group or camp and come back so that the group can get better merc buffs. *,* Note, I did find this funny at first as it allowed every cleric in the game to know what it feels like to play a druid(well they would have to take off all their armour too, but lets skip that.) They know now, and its not funny anymore; its just annoying! Annoying for them and for everyone who has to put up with it.

    Lastly, It will save you time. That's a whole chunk of spells and spell proc effects that you guys don't have to worry about. You can leave the ranks in on heals and damage spells all you want, people will still strive to attain them. That will be fun, and not feel like they are being punished just because the level cap went up.

    Thanks.
  2. Riou EQResource

    If they are worried about constantly inflating spell file with new stuff most of the ranks seem useless for certain sections of players, like it's trivial to skip rank 1s and 2s as a raider

    Could easily have half of each part of your spells as buyable then the other half is drops from random mobs, then 2-3 or so of your core spells getting an upgraded raid only version (like the Ancients and such) to keep some mix of old and current systems

    It would also prob save the like few days or week it takes on setting up 3 versions of every spell on vendors, spell fragment scripts, etc
  3. Xorsazis Augur

    I honestly kind of miss having to go out and find certain spells from named or raid drops. It would be more enjoyable if they just did a "backflag" type of thing which marks your character for rank 3 vs. learning every spell. Less item clutter, and spells can be all upgraded in one shot. Just give it a 75% chance to drop. Be nice for raid alts too.
    Ferriciean and Metanis like this.
  4. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    If i recall correctly they set this system up so that there was a similar sense of building power from spells as there was from upgrading gear, for many classes for a long while other than focus effects & raw mana values the increase of power from gear was only perceived to be slight & meant many players simply skipped upgrading their gear in some expansions or felt it was less than necessary.

    If you want to defeat that argument you need to state a better case perhaps, has upgrading gear resolved that prior issue?
    Are all classes now upgrading gear as much as they can as it provides a significant enough power increase?

    Is the value in having spells tiered outweighed by situational inconvenience on raids or are the existing player-workarounds completely sufficient?
    Corwyhn Lionheart likes this.
  5. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Part of the bonus of being a raider is getting the higher tiered spells. So in my opinion there should be a raiders tier ie RK III. If you raid part of the bonus especially to casters is getting the higher tier spell. I think its akin to them getting gear.

    Tier 1 spells ensure everyone can go and get their new spells from a vendor. So I think RK1 spells should stay.

    Tier 2 spells give people something to strive for and as I said before especially for casters RK II spells are akin to the casters camping for gear.

    In my opinion the current system works fine and does what it is intended to do.
    tyrantula, Skuz, smash and 1 other person like this.
  6. Tanise Elder

    What they need to do is do away with buff timers. All buffs should be perm until used up (runes, etc) or until death. We've outgrown the timed buff era.
    Liljit likes this.
  7. Tanise Elder

    TaniseNew Member


    New Member, that's funny.
  8. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    It's based on your forum posts not your Forum or EQ age.
  9. Axxius Augur

    Not all of them (e.g. making Growth style buffs permanent would be kinda crazy). But the long duration stuff like Haste, Clarity, Skin, etc - IMO those can be safely made permanent without any impact on the game itself, just making players happy.

    As for the original topic, I think it has more to do with how the guild distributes the raid drops, player attendance, use of alts on raids, etc things that are specific to each guild. If your buff providers still have a mix of rk2 and rk3 spells after the first couple of months of a new expansion - consider changing something in the way you distribute them? But changing the whole system just because it seems unreasonable to me.
  10. Metanis Bad Company

    Just throwing this out there...

    Instead of considering the caster of these buffs look at it from the target of the buff!

    In other words, add entire new lines of "shadow" AA purchases that reward the individual with more permanent buff timers...

    EQ Devs could soak this for another 20,000 AA for sure.
    CatsPaws likes this.
  11. tyrantula Elder

    With the tens of thousands of AAs wasted, I can get behind any huge AA time sink.
    Metanis likes this.
  12. john5 Lorekeeper

    Terrible arguments, no surprise. You want what benefits you to stay the same, regardless of how it punishes others. You are well known and get carried through whatever content you please, so of course the system seems fine to you. For other raiders, they simply show up and push the same buttons I push while boxing out in the world, and get handed a stack of rank 3s for literally no extra work or effort. Raiding is not this massively difficult thing that requires any more knowledge of your class than just progressing through group stuff. Let me repeat that, because I think this is the problem here: Raiding is not this massively difficult thing that requires any more knowledge of your class than just progressing through group stuff. The idea that it's more risk and therefore more reward is simply false. In fact, it's less risk. The work load and time investment is skewed- The raid organizers do all the hard work and the rest of you show up and collect your prize. If you die there's a rez and buffs waiting for you. If you need a consumable, someone will gift you some. If you need to emergency AFK, the raid carries on. Boxing group content and physically playing all roles without cheating is objectively harder, and yet always gives diminished rewards in comparison.

    I don't want EQ to be a "job". I retired from raiding. I can't schedule my life around a video game. So, I will never get rank 3 spells. Raiders are, and always have been, spoiled, entitled brats and think the game revolves around them. I never found raids to be challenging. In fact, the devs had to specially design the latest end zone to pose a challenge, and everyone immediately cried about it, because they're so used to showing up and being handed a treasure chest.

    Rank 2's are a waste of time. You make people buy all their spells off a vendor and then it only takes a short time to get all the spell clicky drops you need. If the expansion isn't brand new, you don't even have to bother going to the vendor as the bazaar will have cheap versions of rank 2 clickies. Why even design rank 2s?

    Do away with the entire rank system. Heals, buffs, damage. All of it.
  13. Diptera Augur

    It is demonstrably more effort and complexity to organise and herd multiple groups of people. There is also greater capacity for things to go wrong, since there is more going on in a raid event compared to the equivalent group task, and for a given mistake to cause more upset in the event.

    Tiered spells should most definitely be kept as-is to reflect this - zero effort to go buy the T1 spell, then improved versions for group, with best versions from raids.
  14. p8aa Elder

    Mearatas raid disagrees with you.
    Yinla, tyrantula, Tolzol and 4 others like this.
  15. Coagagin Guild house cat

    @John5.

    You say you do not raid any more yet you are at the same time an expert on current raids. Which is it so I know how to respond, please.
    Axxius, Sancus and Corwyhn Lionheart like this.
  16. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    LOL I have been running a group/casual guild for almost 20 years. I don't get carried through any content and haven't done ANY raids at all this expansion. The only time I have gotten RK III spells were when participated in open raids and no one carried me through. Well... Machin Shin did run the raids and provide a lot of the backbone to the raid so I guess you can call that being carried through but no more then anyone else on the server who joined the open raids.

    It would seem that just because I disagree with you that you want to malign me. The positions I take are either because I think something is good or bad for the game and NOT whether it is good or bad for me personally. Sometimes that makes raiders unhappy and sometimes I guess that makes group/casual players unhappy. I am still going to speak to what I think is best for the game.

    If you actually read any of my posts you will see that I tend to speak in support of the group/casual game while respecting the raid game.

    The whole raiding game is based upon high levels of cooperation between large numbers of players giving you better gear and spells. Top raid guilds take good players and help make them great raiders. Just because this isn't a segment of the game I want to play does not mean it isn't a valid segment.

    EQs play model is based upon raiding giving the best gear and spells. If you want the best gear or spells participate in the raiding portion of the game.
  17. Tanise Elder



    Forgot about those, yeah super buffs, DA, and many clickies would still be timed, i'm mostly referring to haste, crack, aego, skin, etc which I assume the OP is referring to. I disagree with removing the ranks. If they did that, then you would go back to some spells being raid only, and non raiders would scream. And all spells would go to drop only and we'd be back in the early days insanity. No Thanks.

    Invis should also always be perm unless you do something to break it, or something sees and hits you. Running along with my cursor over an invis pot, while using an audio trigger to tell me it's dropping is just dumb. We already have perm AA invis, make invis clickies on live servers perm too. Its silly to have to run my chanter with my warrior or cleric just as an invis pot.
  18. Raccoo Augur

    I think the OP wanted only buffs that you can cast on other characters to be only 1 rank? Like Focus, Assurance, Symbol, VoP, chanter Runes, etc? That does make more sense than getting rid of all ranked spells.
    Yinla and CrazyLarth like this.
  19. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Which is what really makes his attack on me funny. For over seven years I have been running MGB sessions two to three times most days for all player levels. I do that to encourage returning players and as a way to give back to the server I play on. So depending how you look at that it would be great for me to have access to the best buffs. That still doesn't get me RK III buffs and I still believe the current system even when you talk just about buffs is the way it should stay.

    I am all for discussions on where the balance between raid and group gear and spells should be. But I don't see any reason to change the current spell tiers at all. If you want items or spells that come from raids then participate in raids.
  20. Raccoo Augur