I guess I am in the minority on this topic. As a magician, as someone mentioned previously, I have two short term buffs I generally use when I box- symbiosis (mana regen) and Benefaction (chance to heal pets). The timers are 20 minutes and 13 minutes respectively. If I am in combat and I see Benefaction is fading, I have a choice- refresh it (which means no damage from me temporarily) or cast? If I choose to continue to pew pew pew, maybe my pet dies cause it missed a potential heal from Benefaction. Recasting buffs is a decision one has to make. As far as making long term buffs five/ten/infinite hours, I log on my monk. I get shaman, ranger, chanter, paladin buffs. If they are infinite or ridiculous long lasting, what is the point of me wanting to join someone and meet new friends? If I have six hours of gaming on a Saturday afternoon with unlimited buffs, then I may not need the help of others. But after 2-3 hours now, I have a decision. Continue xp'ing on my monk without buffs? Waste time and try and get more buffs in POK or wherever? Or join up with others to get the buffs and play in a MMO? I guess I don't see the distress and issue with buffs. It is part of the game. If you don't like buffs, then don't cast them. You can do stuff in the game without them...
I can get behind self buffs that have a super long duration like 6-8 hrs. I’d rather see a buff npc in the Lobby or PoK. Add a quest line to open up certain spell lines/classes/ranks. i.e. you want surety3 you have to so some clerical type quest/faction work. Nothing huge but maybe get item from one noc, take to another, then another times that by like 8 or so turn ins in various types zones.
I would expect an almost automatic nerf by xx% across the board for most buffs that get the unlimited duration. A stat consolidation leading not needing buffs would probably be saved for a level cap expansion and the increases we would normally get would be xx% lower vs. the standard increase against the new contents power. I would much rather push for a standard duration(4hrs?) for all buffs with a base duration over 30 min~. The risk vs reward balance is still maintained and the need for other classes is still maintained.
Play the game as if buffs didn't exist. Don't rely on them. When you do get them, it's a bonus. The durations for them have been increased numerous times already. We have plenty of permanent buffs from clicks already. A QOL update I'd love to see would be the ability to reorder buffs. I know, more or less, what my stats should be at when I'm fully buffed. If I'm not at full-stats, I have to look through my mess of a buff window to figure out which buff is missing. Either it faded, or it wasn't cast in the first place. If I were allowed to reorder them (or better yet, reorder and assign a spot!), I'd know which ones are missing from a quick glance.
The whole thing about buffs is they can be stripped by certain mobs and by death. Reapplication of buffs to a just-rezzed character, especially in a combat situation, is part of dealing with things. If you can pop right back into a raid with a full set of chanter/shaman/cleric/druid etc buffs, that kills a fairly large aspect of risk management. I am all for making any long term buff (1 hour+) infinite once it has been applied, but if it gets stripped/overwritten or character dies, it has to be re-applied. It would also be great to put NPC buffbots in GL. Should take care of the PoK AFK pile.
People are conflating self buffs with ALL buffs from all classes. Giving everyone all buffs from every class takes away from those classes. Characters die, you play more than 2 hours, ect. You don't ALWAYS have those buffs, and its a lie to claim you always do. If the buff can be cast on other players, it shouldn't be permanent. Only self buffs should.
The point IS to join someone and meet new friends! You don't join someone to get buffs, you log in to join someone... The risk vs reward balance, is exactly zero, in the scenario in my original post. My suggestion was to address the tedious self-rebuffing ritual in the guildhall, not to affect combat in any way. Exactly!!
The 'risk' is... do i do XYZ that might kill me and risk the time stink to get rebuffed and rezed ect. The risk and extra 30 sec for med and self buff may be low(or zero to you) but it is a time sink or 'risk' as far a the devs are concerned. I am not trying to argue the point just say that is the historic dev attitude that would have to be changed. It is much easier to ask for improvements that are not contrary to a long standing development direction. I am all for consolidation that does not eliminate options. With all the recent AA consolidations... my faith that it would happen in a beneficial manner is very low. I greatly prefer to ask for things that are easy to do and harder to end up in a backfire.
Well, they have recently allowed us to keep item-clicky-buffs as permanent passive AAs, so my suggestion is not against the recent developer trend. That said, I would accept "long enough"-buff-durations, instead of infinite durations(my mount/familiar lasts long enough to not be a hassle).
