Only scaling I think really needs to exist is perhaps scaling duration. A level 50 buff that lasts 2 hours, should have a shorter duration on a lower level. A level 25, for instance, should retain the buff for an hour. A level 10, which is 1/5th the level, should keep the buff for 24 minutes. That turns buffing into a decision. Do you take less benefit for longer, or more for shorter?
And if someone wants to powerlevel someone using buffs, they have to commit to being there.
I find that with myself, I've been more than okay with the game development thus far and decisions like these are sitting okay with me too.
This decision in particular sits in alignment with their goals and tenets and for that I am glad that they maintain that integrity.
From a gameplay perspective, their buff-scaling is the appropriate thing to do. Congrats VR.
Dullahan said:Only scaling I think really needs to exist is perhaps scaling duration. A level 50 buff that lasts 2 hours, should have a shorter duration on a lower level. A level 25, for instance, should retain the buff for an hour. A level 10, which is 1/5th the level, should keep the buff for 24 minutes. That turns buffing into a decision. Do you take less benefit for longer, or more for shorter?
And if someone wants to powerlevel someone using buffs, they have to commit to being there.
I'd agree that the only scaling I think that needs to exist would be duration as well, but I think it should be a bit more strict. Closer to maybe an hour buff for a level 50 would be a 48 minute buff for a level 40, 36 minutes for a level 30, 24 minutes for a level 20, and 12 minutes for a level 10. Or roughly a sliding scale for the timer of 20% to 100% duration based on level gap between the spell and the target.
Iksar said:Dullahan said:Only scaling I think really needs to exist is perhaps scaling duration. A level 50 buff that lasts 2 hours, should have a shorter duration on a lower level. A level 25, for instance, should retain the buff for an hour. A level 10, which is 1/5th the level, should keep the buff for 24 minutes. That turns buffing into a decision. Do you take less benefit for longer, or more for shorter?
And if someone wants to powerlevel someone using buffs, they have to commit to being there.
I'd agree that the only scaling I think that needs to exist would be duration as well, but I think it should be a bit more strict. Closer to maybe an hour buff for a level 50 would be a 48 minute buff for a level 40, 36 minutes for a level 30, 24 minutes for a level 20, and 12 minutes for a level 10. Or roughly a sliding scale for the timer of 20% to 100% duration based on level gap between the spell and the target.
Those suggested times are the same as I suggested, except using an hour buff rather than a two hour buff as the example. =p
Gonna paste a question I made from the stream feedback thread, while it is technically about the stream, it is more appropriate to this thread.
Quick question about the buff scaling that was discussed at the start of the last stream. A shaman's strength buff was used as an example of something that would give full value of strength to the lower level recipient but that character would likely not be able to hit for the maximum with it because of how weapon skills worked. I was wondering how this would apply to other buffs, would a level 1 character recieve the full amount of AC/HP from the level 40 cleric's buff or would high level mana regeneration buff give the full value to a lower level character, or is there some sort of skill that would prevent them from gaining full benefit from it? It seems hard to create a realistic limiting factor on every buff. Curious what a few other examples might be.
torveld said:Gonna paste a question I made from the stream feedback thread, while it is technically about the stream, it is more appropriate to this thread.
Quick question about the buff scaling that was discussed at the start of the last stream. A shaman's strength buff was used as an example of something that would give full value of strength to the lower level recipient but that character would likely not be able to hit for the maximum with it because of how weapon skills worked. I was wondering how this would apply to other buffs, would a level 1 character recieve the full amount of AC/HP from the level 40 cleric's buff or would high level mana regeneration buff give the full value to a lower level character, or is there some sort of skill that would prevent them from gaining full benefit from it? It seems hard to create a realistic limiting factor on every buff. Curious what a few other examples might be.
The AC/HP buff might be the same but sense your defense will be very low the AC won't help you as much as a higher lvl charcter and will basically still getting wrecked by mobs higher level than you, basically requiring you to still be in a group, at least this is what i would be getting from it. Mana Regeneration might be scaled to your meditation skill, so having very low skill in Meditatin could lower the effect of the Spell that is casted on you.
Dullahan said:Only scaling I think really needs to exist is perhaps scaling duration. A level 50 buff that lasts 2 hours, should have a shorter duration on a lower level. A level 25, for instance, should retain the buff for an hour. A level 10, which is 1/5th the level, should keep the buff for 24 minutes. That turns buffing into a decision. Do you take less benefit for longer, or more for shorter?
And if someone wants to powerlevel someone using buffs, they have to commit to being there.
The problem with this is boxing. As you have likely experienced, a committed multi-boxer or a well organized guild will have numerous accounts dedicated to support healing or buffing. The need to "commit to being there" will not affect these people.
The best case study for EQ1 buffing and power leveling is not P99, where (correct me if I'm wrong) boxing is prohibited. The best case study is live EQ or the time locked progression servers. If you go there, you will see the extremes to which support boxing and EQ style buffing have been taken. Most recently, in the PoP era, I leveled a cleric from 1 to 65 and 100AA in less than two weeks (real time, not /played) while working full time. I know a few guys who level 2-3 toons from 1 to 65 each week. This is with near-original experience rates (not the crazy live rates). This practice detracts from the community and alienates new players. It also fuels huge RMT business. The power of the buffs needs to be scaled. Otherwise, the only people who will still be making new characters and leveling up after a year or so will be the hardcore no-lifers power leveling their alts.
Mivan said: Twinking was fun back in the day with the fbss/ fungi gear with the Druid thorns and the like but it really trivialized the content. While that was fine in the case of content that is no longer relevant, think about what they are trying to put into this game with the mentoring system. The ability to scale a max level, bis geared toon down to the level of the mentee.
The mentoring system is the worst idea ever. When you look at a mentor, that is someone you look up to or wish to learn from. You scale said mentor down to mentee level then they are pretty much equal. I would prefer to learn from a mentor that trivializes something, not make it even.
Mentoring system makes me have doubts playing a game and I don't know why.
shasta said:Mivan said: Twinking was fun back in the day with the fbss/ fungi gear with the Druid thorns and the like but it really trivialized the content. While that was fine in the case of content that is no longer relevant, think about what they are trying to put into this game with the mentoring system. The ability to scale a max level, bis geared toon down to the level of the mentee.
The mentoring system is the worst idea ever. When you look at a mentor, that is someone you look up to or wish to learn from. You scale said mentor down to mentee level then they are pretty much equal. I would prefer to learn from a mentor that trivializes something, not make it even.
Mentoring system makes me have doubts playing a game and I don't know why.
You don't have to mentor down to someone's level if you don't want to. It's more for players that outlevel their friends but still want to group with them.
The simplest way is just to only allow buffs to land on players of at least level X, that way no high-level buffs can be cast on a player too low of a level.
Another option is to have buffs scale, but I think this is kind of a pointless method because 1) some buffs may not scale well, and 2) what’s the difference between a level 100 buff scaled down to level 10 that’s different than a level 10 buff of the same type?
I don’t think level 100 buffs should land on level 1’s, so the answer is pretty obvious to me.
Gnog said:Dullahan said:Only scaling I think really needs to exist is perhaps scaling duration. A level 50 buff that lasts 2 hours, should have a shorter duration on a lower level. A level 25, for instance, should retain the buff for an hour. A level 10, which is 1/5th the level, should keep the buff for 24 minutes. That turns buffing into a decision. Do you take less benefit for longer, or more for shorter?
And if someone wants to powerlevel someone using buffs, they have to commit to being there.
The problem with this is boxing. As you have likely experienced, a committed multi-boxer or a well organized guild will have numerous accounts dedicated to support healing or buffing. The need to "commit to being there" will not affect these people.
The best case study for EQ1 buffing and power leveling is not P99, where (correct me if I'm wrong) boxing is prohibited. The best case study is live EQ or the time locked progression servers. If you go there, you will see the extremes to which support boxing and EQ style buffing have been taken. Most recently, in the PoP era, I leveled a cleric from 1 to 65 and 100AA in less than two weeks (real time, not /played) while working full time. I know a few guys who level 2-3 toons from 1 to 65 each week. This is with near-original experience rates (not the crazy live rates). This practice detracts from the community and alienates new players. It also fuels huge RMT business. The power of the buffs needs to be scaled. Otherwise, the only people who will still be making new characters and leveling up after a year or so will be the hardcore no-lifers power leveling their alts.
Well, that won't be a direct parallel. Leveling to 65 shouldn't be that easy. It certainly wasn't in earlier EQ, even if you were being powerleveled. If that is the case for Pantheon, there will be disposable characters everywhere.
The other thing is, with the amount of activity required in combat with Pantheon, healing via a boxed character will be problematic. I don't know if anyone noticed, but the number of heals per fight was way higher than it was in EQ. There was also a much narrower window, making switching back and forth much more troublesome.
Either way, that doesn't change the issue at hand, that it shouldn't be made so easy/beneficial to drop massive, long-term buffs on low level characters.
Another option would be to just make health buffs increase stamina directly, and have stamina yield more hp based on your class and level. That way a 50 stamina buff gives 300+ hp to a level 50, but only 50-100 to a lower level. That was how stats worked in EQ, and it allowed a natural scaling based on level. Not very different from Joppa's remarks on scaling weapons based on player skill (which is limited based on level).
