Reducing the Feeling of Character Maintenance

GrumpyDuckling

One of the more unfortunate blemishes that I see on ESO's beautiful combat system is the timer-based buff system that can sometimes make players feel more like they are maintaining their character's power instead of consciously playing as a powerful character.

While the practice of buffing a character is that you are making the character stronger than they normally are (a bonus that should require effort or conscious planning), it would be great if ZOS looked further into the implementation of buffs and buff-like skills to provide players with more options that feel less like maintenance, and more like organic (yet, still conscious), in-the-flow-of-combat buffs. There are already some stellar examples of organic feeling buffs that already exist in-game:

1) Passive buffs that permanently apply when a skill is slotted (ex: The Dragonknight skill Flames of Oblivion gives Major Savagery and Major Prophecy for being slotted).
2) Passive buffs that apply whenever any skill from a skill line is activated (ex: The Nightblade passive Shadow Barrier gives Major Ward and Major Resolve whenever any shadow skill is activated).

Another, more recent example of an organic-appearing buff was giving Templars the Minor Protection buff in their Spear Wall passive -- it was a change that gives the player options from an entire skill line to activate the buff -- meaning they could pick whichever skill felt best for them and their build. Implementing more buffs like these may help to reduce the "buff bar" mentality of maintaining a character and/or utilizing one of the two weapon bars for the purpose of buffs.

Another option that would be great for players to have is to allow applicable skills to be toggled. Skills like the Warden's Lotus Flower or the Nightblade's Siphoning Strikes are good candidates for buff-like skills that a player may wish to toggle -- effectively allowing the player to never have to cast the skill again at the cost of occupying two slots (bar swap) to remain active, if they choose to make that sacrifice. Toggling a skill could be as simple as pressing the "lock" button on a skill (like we currently do to lock items that we don't want to sell or destroy).

TL:DR - Please consider how buffs can fit more organically into a player's rotation (like you did with Templar's Spear Wall passive) so that utilizing buffs feels more like consciously playing a powerful character, and less like maintaining a character's power.

Checkmath

This sounds like you do not want to cast buffs as often in fights, since it does not really feel like fighting, but rather like just buffing up again and again. Therefore my question is, if you are talking from a PvP perspective or from a PvE perspective.

In PvE there are only a few classes, which have to maintain buffs. The important buffs normally are covered by potions already. When I think about your problem, nightblades come to my mind, which maintain a few buffs like leeching strikes or grim focus in their rotation. Most other classes have less buffs to maintain. Also in most cases those buffs fit in a rotation very easely and do not really disturb the combat flow.

For PvP I think this is a bad idea. Normally everyone in PvP really needs the bar space for all the situations they will get in. Having to double bar all those buff skills (like 3 to 5 skills in normal PvP) would leave you with zero space for offensive skills. There are many classes actually having bar space issues and complaining about it for years. Making skills as toggles just to get a permanent buff would be a bad idea in that case.

The whole idea also would make the game less engaging generally: it would make rotations easier, since you only have a rotation of damage skills and no buffs anymore to maintain, also PvP would be less engaging, since it would only be about damage and healing.

Maintaining buff uptimes is an engaging feature and makes the combat feeling more fun in my opinion. Being always at your peak power does not sound fun at all, since also in a combat you normally have up and downs.

MartiniDaniels

^ I agree of course, but i'm really interested if there is statistics of what % of people are drinking crit/damage potions on cooldown in any content outside of pvp actual battle, vet trials and dlc vet HMs.

Brrrofski

For pvp, I like that you need to maintain buffs. If you're a good player you'll keep then up while bad players won't. Please don't take anymore skill/game knowledge away from PvP, there isn't much left as it is.

Also, bar space is part of making a build and thinking out fights. Using up slots for buffs and not just ploughing them with active skills is also a good thing - people need to make choices.

GrumpyDuckling

Checkmath wrote: »

This sounds like you do not want to cast buffs as often in fights, since it does not really feel like fighting, but rather like just buffing up again and again. Therefore my question is, if you are talking from a PvP perspective or from a PvE perspective.

In PvE there are only a few classes, which have to maintain buffs. The important buffs normally are covered by potions already. When I think about your problem, nightblades come to my mind, which maintain a few buffs like leeching strikes or grim focus in their rotation. Most other classes have less buffs to maintain. Also in most cases those buffs fit in a rotation very easely and do not really disturb the combat flow.

For PvP I think this is a bad idea. Normally everyone in PvP really needs the bar space for all the situations they will get in. Having to double bar all those buff skills (like 3 to 5 skills in normal PvP) would leave you with zero space for offensive skills. There are many classes actually having bar space issues and complaining about it for years. Making skills as toggles just to get a permanent buff would be a bad idea in that case.

The whole idea also would make the game less engaging generally: it would make rotations easier, since you only have a rotation of damage skills and no buffs anymore to maintain, also PvP would be less engaging, since it would only be about damage and healing.

Maintaining buff uptimes is an engaging feature and makes the combat feeling more fun in my opinion. Being always at your peak power does not sound fun at all, since also in a combat you normally have up and downs.

I'll go by points.

• I was speaking both from a PVP and PVE perspective. However, in both game modes it likely depends on whether or not you are playing with coordinated players who have designated roles to buff. Perhaps it is more from a PVP solo or really small group perspective, and random dungeon finder scenarios in PVE. Those would probably be the most likely perspectives who would be affected, but I think it could apply everywhere.
• I mentioned that the idea of toggling applicable skills is optional. If you don't want the skill to toggle, then don't toggle it. The toggle would just give players more options.
• Would PVP really be less engaging? Players would still have to be conscious of when to utilize certain skills that are providing buffs, and that could all occur during combat. We would likely have more continuous, active combat, in place of buff then burn game play. Buff then burn game play can be fine and make sense at times, but other times it seems a bit silly to watch people disengage/flee from a fight just because it's time to cycle through buffs that are safer to apply outside of combat. Some players may prefer that style, but I think that makes the game feel like it is less about battling opponents, and more like playing a seesaw version of cat and mouse.
• I think we just disagree about the "engaging" part. I think it's more engaging to have a conscious rotation that can provide buffs while it feels more like playing the game (using more, in-combat skills that feel active), but like you stated, we're in opinion territory here. I also like the idea that it could potentially allow players to get more out of their two weapon slots, instead of sometimes designating one weapon slot as the "buff" bar. Combat where players could get a little more diverse with their weapon slots appears interesting to me. Again, my opinion.
• "Being always at your peak power" might not necessarily be the case. In PVE it would likely be easier to achieve because enemies are less dynamic and more predictable (but many players achieve near 100% up time of peak power in PVE already). In PVP it would likely be more difficult to always be at peak power because you have less predictable game play and more dynamic combat.

WoppaBoem

Play the class you want that has the least ''maintenance''

Use mighty chudan in PVP and you remove a buff almost every class uses and so on.

I like non damage related skills, it seperates the good and bad players in longer battles in PVP.

So used to it, don't think I would like to have it changes mainly because all classes bring their own flavor of buffs that makes them unique.

AcadianPaladin

I view potions as simply 45-50 second buffs that need to be reapplied just like any other buff.

Chudan, Rattlecage / Dreugh King Slayer can reduce 'buff maintenance' on some classes. The problem is that you get permanent buffs but give up some other form of combat power with those gear choices. My stamblade is specced in Chudan & Dreugh King and, yes, she is easier to play in some ways but less potent in others due to the gear choices. I don't get along very well with Wardens because they have too many buffs to manage.

I basically agree with OP. I would consider buffs that last a good long time (maybe 60 seconds) and do 2 or 3 things per buff instead of 1 or 2.

GrumpyDuckling

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

I view potions as simply 45-50 second buffs that need to be reapplied just like any other buff.

Chudan, Rattlecage / Dreugh King Slayer can reduce 'buff maintenance' on some classes. The problem is that you get permanent buffs but give up some other form of combat power with those gear choices. My stamblade is specced in Chudan & Dreugh King and, yes, she is easier to play in some ways but less potent in others due to the gear choices. I don't get along very well with Wardens because they have too many buffs to manage.

I basically agree with OP. I would consider buffs that last a good long time (maybe 60 seconds) and do 2 or 3 things per buff instead of 1 or 2.

I definitely have a soft spot for sets like Mighty Chudan, Rattlecage, and Dreugh King Slayer because they help to achieve that feeling of playing as a powerful character instead of maintaining the power of a character.

With Warden, I feel the same way. Every time I play my Warden my buff cycle appears far more frequently than other classes (probably because of the 10 second timer on skills like Vines and Falcon's, then working Lotus Flower in every other buff cycle because of the 20 second duration).

Some/all of those skills I would very much prefer to have as a toggle option (at the cost of skill slots) just so the class feels less like maintenance.