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To Buff Bot or Not to Buff Bot
Komplete
Member Posts: 11
Think WAR will have the possibilites of buff botting? In DAOC that is what turned me off having to pay for 2 accounts in order to compete. With the new "classic servers" this was much more easy to enjoy a fantastic game. I am looking forward to playing WAR but this is in the back of my mind. Not sure if any others have this in thought but please let me know your opinions.
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What is this buff botting you speak of?
~~Internet gaming is not for the faint of heart or the dumb of mind.~~
Buff Botting is where you use one account that has a buffer and you leave him in a safe location so you can play your buffed up character to go kill other players that may not be able to pay for another account.
I don't see many cases where you could be an effective buffbot. As long as buffs are kept to a short duration and healing requires more than standing back and spam healing, things should great. These are all things they've said are goals of their game. They want us to spend time killing stuff and less time standing back watching health bars.
so...
A buff-free MMO is fine by me. However I wonder if devs favor buffing implementation in order to sell more accounts.
To some extent, yes. I don't think we will see so many buffs, or such a massive increase in power due to buffs. I do think, however, you will continue to see people with healers /stuck to them, so we will just call them heal bots. I, for one, enjoyed buffs in DAoC. I disliked how they worked in RvR, though. Way to imbalanced. They were great for leveling, though.
Yeah! that's good spirit!!
I seem to remember the devs sayign this was not feasaible, as the buffs where either area centered on the caster, and moved along with him, or they where of short duration; meaning you had to keep close to the buff bot, and constatly switch windows to move the bot along with the rest of the group and to rebuff when they would run out.
In the original DAOC player buffs played a huge part in your character's overall strength. A full set of the highest level buffs could improve your overall combat strength by almost 30% or more.
Now, for a character to get maximum buffing abilities he would have spend a huge percentage of his specialization points in buffing abilities, which pretty much gimped him for any sort of combat or healing role.
This wasn't much fun, so people didn't really want to do it. Well, due to a quirk in game mechanics, buffs could be cast on a player and they would stay on them no matter how far away they got from the buffer, even if they left the zone. So smart PVP players (and sometime in PVE) figured out that they could open a 2nd account... train their new character in only buffing skills.... use them to buff their other character (and some of their friends)... and then stand that unmanned "buff-bot" in a nearby npc guarded portal keep (usually the one you respawned in after you died) that kept the buff bot totally safe from dying.
This meant that solo players could go out into the world with a full set of buffs.... which really overpowered them if they ran into another solo player who didn't have access to a buff bot. Also, most Buffs had no duration..once cast most of them lasted indefinitely, until either the player or buffer died.
The net result was that a large percentage of the player base had a buff bot account or two..... which Mythic liked because it meant more subs for them.
But of course, this really frosted the nads of the folks who didn't buff bot. So when Mythic created the "Classic Servers" they changed buffing so that it could only last if the player was within a certain physcial distance from the buff bot...and it would not last through zones anymore. Buffs are still important, but at least you have to drag the buff bot with your party and give the other side a chance to kill it (which removes the buffs from the party) or actually have an actual player at the helm playing buffer.
This has resulted in more hybrid specs...meaning people train up in buffing, but not to the max level...they stop a few levels short so that they can still retain some combat or healing utility as well.
Overall, the classic buffing rule set is superior to the original,and I'm really hoping its this model they bring into WAR....
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Ick, short duration! I normally play a priest, and while I love healing, I hate having to buff - long buff durations are marvelous, so I don't have to keep recasting them! Short duration buffs sound like a bummer, but I really like the idea of area centered on the caster. Sort of bard-esque, eh?
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
I suspect based on the class, you'll have a variation of buff styles. Some may be aura based, others could be short duration, and still others may be longer duration, but I would guess you won't see hour long buffs. That wouldn't make sense from what I've heard... unless it's a very small number of buffs.
I get the idea that WAR will be different by design, not just to be different, but to fix something that they see as broken in other MMO's.
so...
Not totally on track BUT
I have always felt PRIEST type buffs in particular should be primarily morale-oriented...
As to WAR - I'm under the impression that one of the things they are going to address is "bots" in general -
i believe their stated goal is to make all the classes a little more able to participate and alittle less likely to be a "bot"
Certainly in the WH IP; the priests (being champions of a higher power rather than just a guy preaching) are NOTHING to be trifled with.
This was asked in a podcast im pretty sure. Anyway the answer is no buff bots. Buffs are group only and the "buffers" have to be in range for the buff to work.
Don't expect buff bots in WAR, playing a "healer" is looking to be far too involved for such a thing to be feasible.
That's dissappointing. I was really hoping they would decrease the power of buffs.
I specifically recall from reading or watching an interview, that buffs will only apply to groupmates. If you are not grouped with the buffer, you do not get the buff. Period. (Though this may change/be relaxed...this was from months ago.)
Thus, no buffbots, unless you group the buffbot and run him around with you, which is not really a buffbot anymore, but an actual playing character.
I like this in all aspects except the fact that you cannot do any legitimate "fly-by" buffings to help fellow players out. Whenever I play support classes I usually toss a few buffs out to people I come across, just to be nice and help out, but now we cannot.
Still, the good outweighs the bad. In DAoC it could be tough to compete when the enemy was buffed to hell by buffbots and you were not, which was quite lame.
As I understand the game, I may be wrong, but a lot of these skills require morale and this can only be generated while you or your group is engaged in combat. So that mechanic alone defeats the concept of a buffer standing off in a secluded area spamming buffs.
Again, not sure on this. Especially characters like runepriests who seem in theory to be specialized in preperation magics, how can they excel in what they do. I mean, if they need morale generated so they imbue a fellow group mate with a rune of healing or imbue their weapon with a striking rune, the group has to be fighting already. Does the morale bar rise quickly enough so these runes can be useful enough in these fast combat encounters?
I am absolutely going to make a buff bot account if possible. I am not sure how the buffs will work though, concentration based or timer. If they are on a timer i will rethink my stance on starting up with 2 accounts. I usually like to play a buff bot as well when i am bored or just feel like helping out some guildies or lowbies. It is mindless fun to just buff people up and chat while they grind away. Either way (2 accounts or 1) i will have a buffer class for sure.
I do hope that they do it like DAoC, I love my buff bot on my one account, she is my most 'decked' out toon I have ever made. I started off just thinking I would "/stick" her to a main then i realized i liked playing her. I think playing one, or a healer, is a great way to get to know a game or a good introduction to mmorpg's in general. You always can find a group and you learn about every class from standing back and observing.
No buff botting in war from what I've read. Everybody has to fight. Priests can't cast useful spells unless they're in the thick of the battle, and I'm betting that zealots will have to do the same with their "marks". I don't think there will be really buffs at all like in daoc. You shouldn't need to put up 21+ effects on yourself to just to keep up with everyone else as most serious rvr chars in daoc must now do. (Unless you're a vampiir i suppose.) Everybody fights in war.
I think the idea is that WAR will not have buffbots the way that DAoC had buffbots (non-Classic servers).
That's a good thing.
I had a second account with a buffbot and, frankly, I personally don't find dual-boxing very much fun. Some people do.
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Ick, short duration! I normally play a priest, and while I love healing, I hate having to buff - long buff durations are marvelous, so I don't have to keep recasting them! Short duration buffs sound like a bummer, but I really like the idea of area centered on the caster. Sort of bard-esque, eh?
I really can't see how you can be surprised about this if you have put any time into reading the introductory material about this game? Are you really following this game (very hard to believe that) or are you here just trying to push your playstyle?
Buff botting won't work well, or so we are told.
Supposedly most of the best 'buffs' require you to actually be in combat damaging your opponent, and a lot of the buffs are temporary and dependant on the caster doing or recieving damage, Such as the Runecaster's health buffs/runes.
This active aproach seems to weed out leachers and two boxers and buffbotters
We can only but hope.
Edit: And Taera:
I'm going to have to go with the above poster on this one, its always been stated that there would be short duration buffs and buffs that depended on combat.. unless you have not been keeping up with the game at all (Shame on you if not, Miss community manager), this has been mentioned repeatedly, along with no stealth classes.
---Also shorter buffs have become the standard in MMOs since the longterm buffs in EQ and Starwars Galaxies severely unballanced the games they were in to the point where you HAD to be buffed or you were completely ineffective...
Look at WoW most: buffs last no more than ten or 15 minutes TOPS(with a few lasting a half hour or so) and the few that last longer than a half hourare raid buffs that go away when you are no longer in a group or raid
PS: if you just like to heal....SO THE WRONG GAME FOR YOU Ma'am, most of your best abillities/buffs/attacks require you to be in combat dong damage
the dev's said no buffbots to get a buff in WAR you have to be in the buff giver's group
I think most of you totally missed what the OP was talking about. There are several definitions of 'buff bot'.
1. Someone who plays in a group and mostly buffs or heals other characters. Also similar to healbot, etc.
2. A person who BUYS two copies of the game and plays on TWO accounts simulateneously with TWO computers. One of the characters is a healer/buffer and /follow's the main and you play the main character (primarily). The person reaches over and presses heals and buffs when necessary on the second computer. It's basically like a minion except it's a SECOND fully developed player character that you can control. An example would be a priest in WOW spec'd for healing that follows a warrior, etc.
The OP was referring to the second description as he mentioned the cost of maintaining a second account, etc. This, however, doesn't sound possible (or at least very effective) in WAR as they intentionally made it that there are no charcter classes that can simply stand back and heal. They are 'more effective' (whatever that means) if they participate in combat, etc.
There are plenty of heals and buffs in the game (by description and testimony of those who have played) which is a totally normal thing. I would go so far as to say there will be a LOT of inter-player effects (ie., buffs) as this promotes teamwork and strategy which is what WAR is all about. Soloists and lone wolfs will be easy prey. A group is more than the sum of it's individual players.
BNS! big number syndrome!