Buffing NPCs

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Exiled, May 27, 2022.

  1. Skrab East Cabilis #1 Realtor

    Returning and leveling players typically lack gear, thus having buffs allows a character to be on better footing to obtain appropriate level item rewards.

    A lot of EQ population has their buff boxes that they keep FTP, including some posters in this thread that object to Buffing NPCs.
  2. Smokezz The Bane Crew


    Using /play is a new thing for keeping your name. It used to go by whoever created it first.
  3. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Skrab...no one is ADVOCATING players run around buffless. You talk as though it's a dichotomy. To buff or not to buff is not the question.

    What I am saying, to be absolutely clear, is I don't understand why people wait around for buffs. Expending valuable time to achieve a set of perfect buffs rather than experiencing content is a poor trade off.

    Buff bots are fine, but there needs to be a cost to keep some semblance of balance. Otherwise we may as well just increase everyone's stats accordingly and remove all buffs from the game.
    Loup Garou likes this.
  4. Skrab East Cabilis #1 Realtor

    I know it shouldn’t seem like a long time ago, but 2005 was 17 years ago.

    https://www.everquest.com/news/imported-eq-enus-64038

    Duplicate Character Names
    It is possible that characters on servers affected by the merge will have duplicate names. In the event that characters on the new, combined server do share a name, the character with the most played time will be entitled to keep the name
    Waring_McMarrin likes this.
  5. Skrab East Cabilis #1 Realtor

    You seem weirdly confused within your own posting.
  6. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    How so?
  7. Loup Garou De loop de loop

    What Skrab said and if your time ran out then you would stay all access until you logged. But they fixed that one
  8. Loup Garou De loop de loop

    Its still in effect may 2022

    If there is still a conflict, the character with the highest number of minutes played will retain the original character name.
    https://www.everquest.com/news/eq-phinigel-miragul-vox-merge
  9. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    I don't object to buff bots - my view is your asking for more trouble than you think. And since there are ways around this, that it would be better to use those ways.

    I can see it now: Buff Bots are put into the game with a 3 minute reuse timer and will only buff one person at a time. Or they do MGB every 10 minutes or whatever.

    Either of those are still going to result in mass amounts of players gathering around them. Next thing they will have to make AOC for the buff bots

    And how could you possibly have enough Bots to cover all the spells? And pre level 66 or whatever it is will need lower bots. So you go up to one and pick the buff you want from a list?

    Think about the mechanics before wanting changes made. I can just see the dev's snickering in the background when they set the bots to have reuse timers.

    Finally, a year or two or three ago they streamlined all the NPC and deleted many of them from the game. Obviously they are limited on NPC space.

    Dev's are the devil ...everyone thinks its mercs ;)
  10. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    It isn't exactly new and they have been doing that for a while now in regards to server merges.
  11. OlavSkullcrusher Augur

    Personally, I think that it is a poor design choice to have combat effective buffs that persist outside of the group with the buffer. Utility buffs like run speed or water breathing would be fine, but AC/HP buffs, haste, mana regen, etc. should only be available while you are grouped with the person that has those buffs. Want a ranger buff? Have a ranger in your group. Want mana regen? Invite an enchanter or bard.

    When you think about the social aspect of the game, getting mass group buffs from every possible class and then going off to molo or box isn't exactly social.
    Shanarias likes this.
  12. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    As great as it sounds to say if you want a buff you should invite someone of that class in practice it isn't that great. It just means you start having required classes which makes it harder for others to get a group. How many classes in EQ provide a desired buff versus how many provide no buffs at all?
  13. Skrab East Cabilis #1 Realtor

    Are you going to ignore all the aDPS abilities that are group members only and short duration?
  14. OlavSkullcrusher Augur

    Actually, it would mean that you'd have choices to make, learn to manage fine without certain buffs if someone of that class isn't available, or you need to make room for someone else. Having all of the buffs should never be 'required'.

    I'm not ignoring them. The OP and this thread has been about the perceived need for the long lasting buffs that can be cast outside of the group.

    Anyway, this is just my opinion of a basic design choice of the original game and how I think it has more negative effects the way the game is played now versus positive effects. Take it for what it is, just my two cents.
  15. Waring_McMarrin Augur


    Having all the buffs isn't required and never has but that doesn't mean people won't/don't treat them as required. How often in the past did you see druids/shaman get passed up for healing roles because they didn't have rez and the group required a cleric because of that.
  16. Flatchy Court Jester

    Just have a seperate zone ingame just for this buffing. That is the only thing going on in that zone. One way in and one way out. Let all the buff moochers sit in there 24/7 and lag that zone out. It would effect no one but the others looking for a hand out.
    Shanarias likes this.
  17. Raccoo Augur

    These buffs help lower levels more than maxed level. Lower levels have problems finding people to group with so making these buffs group only or reducing durations will hurt them more.
    It's one way to help out population on the server, so I'm one of the ones who daily MGB in pok on my server.

    I helped move the buff pile from the guild lobby to behind the pok big bank to move the bodies out of higher travel area. I use /hidemodels all noncombat because the lag from the models is bad, but it is nice not getting stuck on people when running through the lobby. I haven't noticed more zone lag in pok than what was there before (having so many NPCs in one huge zone is what creates lag there).
    Bernel likes this.
  18. Smokezz The Bane Crew

    Time flies... memories fade. LOL

    I'd put Krono on it though that 99.9% of people aren't sitting in lag piles for this reason.
  19. Bernel Augur

    Without boxing or community buffs, I'm not sure how feasible it is to level on your own past 80-85. It's technically possible, but it's pretty difficult and slow. I'm not sure that many people enjoy that experience enough to keep with it. Perhaps if you have raid gear you can do it on your own, but a solo player with world drops is going to struggle without some kind of external help. And with the lack of grouping at those levels, the most feasible source of external help is from buffs.

    Because EQ takes so long to start up and get to the character, it's much more convenient to just stay logged in all the time if you're going to have intermittent play sessions. One option is to stay on the character select screen, but that screen runs at max FPS and does not obey the "Max Background FPS" setting. It's actually less resource intensive to have a character logged in than at the character select screen since the EQ client with a logged-in character will run with the background FPS instead of full FPS on the CS screen. So since I'm going to be passively logged in anyway to avoid the CPU hit from the CS screen, I might as well be in the buff pile for the chance to pick up a few helpful buffs.
  20. Dre. Altoholic

    It's really inexcusable that EQ doesn't have accessible potions for the most-critical buffs. All I ever see in /baz are 35-or-less skinspikes, SoW that's slower than a mount and haste potions that I can buy from PoK that cap out at 50% anyway.

    Basic buff potion: 50% power of buffs castable by players of your level. 2hr duration, costs equivalent to 2 hours of Merc upkeep.
    Mega enhancement potion: 75% power of max level buff that can take hold on the player. Same cost but only 15 minute duration.

    Each multi-potion casts a separate buff of: Haste, DS, regen, mana regen, resists, levitate and runspeed.

    Player buffs would obviously be preferred because of their extra intensity, duration or maybe just because they are free. The potion doesn't include everything and the kitchen sink. But the multipotion gives players (especially lower level/solo/non-box/guild types) the accessibility to the critical long-term buffs they need to get out there and get levels.

    The second, very critical part of this would be the ability to give a potion to your merc and having them drink it.