Here's the problem (and it's been stated several times over in this thread and others): giving everyone a free 30 fervor isn't necessarily a bad thing, if they also balance new content (mob HP) around assuming every has it. However, if that is the assumption, then you as a player basically need to ensure that you have the 30 fervor up at all times, or you're possibly going to struggle too much to complete content. And with the way they've structured the buff, that means a few things: 1) It loses its roleplay intent. That is, people are just going to bind to whoever they group/play with, rather than an actual (or in game) romantic partner. That's only a big deal if you care about the theme of the buff and the roleplay aspect (which some do.) 2) One of the two people has to call back to GH every half hour to refresh it. Disrupts gameplay. Not fun. 3) Alternatively, you can pay the $15/month (or buy kronos for plat) to keep a 2nd account parked next to the stone to refresh it yourself on a second game client. Also not fun. Bit of a hassle to run two clients on one computer for some people. Pure "pay to win" theory manifested. So, taking the other view on this, and assuming that they ARE NOT increasing mob HP commensurate with everyone having this extra free Fervor, then that means they are further trivializing content... content that is already not that hard. Loss of challenge makes people bored with the game faster. See the problem? It's a lose/lose for the long term happiness of the playerbase.
This is it exactly. But they generally aren't happy with that. If they don't like it, they don't want anyone to have access to it. It's been this way since the game started.
I get really tired of the raiders getting to make all the decisions in this game. If you don't like something, don't participate in it. But it ticks me off that because they don't like/want "the little people" to have something, no one should. And it gets taken away. So much for "play your own way". You mean play the raider way or don't play at all.
It has absolutely NOTHING to do with raiders vs the little guy. It's not just raiders saying the way the buff is currently is a bad idea. It's a whole lot of people who have seen the effect this sort of thing has had in the past. Some are people who've been with SOE/Daybreak for a long time (some of us since 1999-2000 when old EQ was new) and know how this sort of thing goes. If they insist on it being +30/+15 fervor, it needs to only apply when grouped with the person in the same zone. It also needs to have a cooldown period so you can't just heartbind with random people in every group you are in. It's just ridiculous. They might as well have added +30 fervor to common crafted food as easy as this buff is to come by. And for the record, I already am not using it, for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of how Daybreak advertised it as basically in game handfasting/marriage and then made it just another 'have it or you are a scrub' buff.
From the EQ2Wire interview with the Dev staff... I would be interested if Kaitheel thinks the implementation of Heartbound is serving it's intended purpose? Also, i guess they equate "putting in more effort" with zoning back to GH every 30 min and clicking something, or subbing a second account to camp the altar. Lastly, the fact they don't think 30 fervor is too high and is "future proof" indicates to me they are just planning to continue to inflate fervor to the point where 30 isn't that big a deal. Good to know.
I think it did serve Kaitheel's purpose. Some people now can bound as romantic couples and enjoy role-playing. Some people like me to get an additional buff to group or raid. I don't see any bad things out of this game feature. Only pros. Good work Kaitheel! thank you!
One itemization change later and it will be just another stat that is either hard capped in solo gear or put on a heavy diminishing curve and then what? They'll introduce yet another absurdly powerful stat and another year later every time we hit the mob we see integer overflow over its head rather than a number? Point being, the stats inflation is just getting further and further out of control, in the past we usually had to at least wait a full expac until scripts broke from too much dps, but have you tried spawning the second name in Toxic Lair recently? You have to solo the 4 trash mobs with singular focus enabled from inside one of the webs to cripple your dps enough to be able to stop killing them too quickly for the script...
Well, they did just have to release a new ACT version recently because the 32 bit integers they used for the original version were finally overflowing. Wizard Fiery Blast routinely exceeds the 2.3B MAXINT, and I'm seeing Assassinate myth crits getting darn close now too. I'm pretty sure I have the current record for highest single hit (regular ability, not some scripted instakill thing) with a 6.95B Fiery Blast - someone feel free to update me if that's not the case (personal curiosity heh). So yeah, we won't exceed the INT64s and break ACT again, but we're easily on track for 3-5B individual parses by the end of next xpac. People are already exceeding 1B on fights like Psionists. While I fundamentally like the idea of a stat crunch, Blizzard dorked that up so badly with WoW that I am 99.98% sure that DBGs tiny staff would implement it even more sloppily. So hey, sit back and enjoy the ride I guess.
Sadly the con is that we all know it won't last. Fervor will be inflated into meaningless stat oblivion right along with all the other capped stats. It will decrease in power due to poor future itemization and implementation of OP buffs like Heartbound until they have to invent a new stat called Super Fervor and the cycle will repeat.
