Should Important Buffs Last Longer?

Avrael

In my eyes, it would be a healthy change to make skills that give you important buffs, like Major Sorcery and Major Brutality, things you should keep up all the time, last longer. By that i mean Skills like Siphoning Strikes and Grim Focus on Nightblade, or Surge and Lightning Form on Sorcerer, even tho i have to say the 33sec on Surge is pretty much perfect, and the bar i would use for all other buff skills. My idea would be to make skills like this ALL go for 30sec. so theyre easier to keep up in a rotation. Like, the stamina morph of Grim Focus has 30sec. but the magicka only 20, so you have to use it 3 times in one minute instead of 2, which maybe doesnt sound like much, but i personally find it pretty annoying dealing with so many diffrent timers on buffs you HAVE to keep up 100%. Also im a Mag-Sorc main, and keeping up the 33sec. Surge and the 23sec. Lightning Form can get a bit fiddly at times. I basically just overcast Surge every 20sec. with Lightning Form, so i have to only keep track of one mental timer.

They already are working on doing this for things like ground AoEs, which are almost all 8-12 seconds now depending on morph (i think next patch its 10-12sec.), which is a really good change. So i hope a change like this isnt asked too much, it just would save all players a lot of time.

idk

The design of the length of buffs (and debuffs) is to make us choose. Zos has said this much. Your changes reduce the need to make that choice and I do not see a cost involved.

Avrael

There is no choosing important buffs.

Next Patch: "Hmm, should i use Entrophy which gives me 20sec. M.S. and that only when i hit an enemy, and also doesnt do any damage anymore, or Critical Surge, which gives me 33sec. of the same buff, heals me A LOT passivley, and i can use to buff up before a fight?"

For sure ill use Entrophy, because i just make that choice!

idk

Avrael wrote: »

There is no choosing important buffs.

Next Patch: "Hmm, should i use Entrophy which gives me 20sec. M.S. and that only when i hit an enemy, and also doesnt do any damage anymore, or Critical Surge, which gives me 33sec. of the same buff, heals me A LOT passivley, and i can use to buff up before a fight?"

For sure ill use Entrophy, because i just make that choice!

Yes there is and you are providing a great example that we do have to make choices. You just want to trivialize it.

Avrael

If you honestly would use a worse skill over a clearly better one, just because you can choose it, i can and will not take you serious anymore. Thats ridiculous.

Your Argument would make sense when there would be fair skill choices, to REALLY choose from, but thats not the case in this game. Some skills are just MUCH better then others, and some are not worth using at all.

Again, noone uses the skill Flare over Mage Light or Expert Hunter in solo PvP, just because it exposes stealth. It costs 5,4k magicka, takes a long time to hit the ground, HAS to hit the ground, doesnt follow you, and you already need to be alliance line rank 7 to use it. There may be an illusion of choice, but there is no realistic choice to be made on most skills.

Edit: Also, i dont see how giving diffrent skills the same active time takes away your "choice". Care to explain to me, since im clearly missing something.

jadarock

No atm keeping your buffs up is where some skill is involved. Let's not lower the ceiling anymore huh

idk

Avrael wrote: »

If you honestly would use a worse skill over a clearly better one, just because you can choose it, i can and will not take you serious anymore. Thats ridiculous.

Your Argument would make sense when there would be fair skill choices, to REALLY choose from, but thats not the case in this game. Some skills are just MUCH better then others, and some are not worth using at all.

Pls do not put words into my mouth. I never suggested anything of the sorts so your comment [snip]

I merely sated a fact that Zos has said previously when the shortened the duration of one set of skills that came down to having us make a choice. I do not care if you have a problem with that and your argument comes down to you merely want things to be more convenient for you.

jadarock wrote: »

No atm keeping your buffs up is where some skill is involved. Let's not lower the ceiling anymore huh

Very good point. As I stated previously the idea presented seem to want to trivialize the use of buffs.

[Edited to remove Rude Comments]

Avrael

idk wrote: »

Pls do not put words into my mouth. I never suggested anything of the sorts so your comment is absurd. It is hard to take you seriously when you resort to such tactics.

Well ok, if you want to play the victim card, while telling me to use "such tactics".

Then please explain to me exactly how it would be worse for the game if you wouldnt have to fiddle with 5 diffrent timers all the time in a fight. There will still be roations you have to use, its not like it magically transforms into some no-brain MMO just because keeping track of your LONG buffs would get slightly less annoying. I dont even want it for cost reduction or anything other then a smooth timer, hell, make those skills costs 8k each but let them last a minute, i dont care. Pressing something 5 times doesnt make it more skillfull then pressing it 1 time in the same timeframe in my opinion, if it would be balanced towards that, which isnt a problem. It just would give you a bit more time on important parts of your rotation, which are fiddly enough.

I can only say, it probably costs me personally a lot of DPS overusing a skill just because its easier to hold up 2 buffs on one timer then using them individually every 33sec., and then every 23sec. Honest question, do you do that? And if so, how? I seariously cant fathom someone keeping all buffs up perfectly all the time with times like 10, 12, 15, 17, 23, 26, 33, etc. sec.

Also im not sure if the skill ceiling argument pulls anymore... ZoS clearly dont show, nor have ever shown, even a little bit of concern for the "skill ceiling", thats obviously not a priority for them at all. There are pretty much 500 bigger problems that threaten the barely existing skill ceiling in this game.

Aurie

I totally agree with @Avrael . Not going to go into details, as he has already clearly stated what he thinks.

However, @idk , have you ever considered quite how self-opinionated you always sound? I read most of your posts, along with everyone else's in the threads that interest me. And you invariably come over as someone who thinks his view is the only correct one. And furthermore, you appear to have inside information as to exactly what goes on in ZOS' minds, and the reasons they make their decisions and do things. I'm sorry to tell you, but you are no more right than anyone else, and you do not know any more than anyone else how ZOS thinks.

Avrael

@Aurelle1 Cant tell you how good it feels to have SOMEONE agreeing with you. Doesnt happen often in this forum.

Also i have to agree, while i didnt want to state it as hard as you did, many people with 10 stars under their name here sound a bit like the infamous "500 confirmed kills sniper you better watch out" guy. Not ALL, but some.

I can be wrong. Means, everyone can be wrong, including persons with 10 stars under their name.

But back to the topic, im still interested in an explenation how synchronised timers would ruin the fun for everyone.

idk

Aurelle1 wrote: »

I totally agree with @Avrael . Not going to go into details, as he has already clearly stated what he thinks.

However, @idk , have you ever considered quite how self-opinionated you always sound? I read most of your posts, along with everyone else's in the threads that interest me. And you invariably come over as someone who thinks his view is the only correct one. And furthermore, you appear to have inside information as to exactly what goes on in ZOS' minds, and the reasons they make their decisions and do things. I'm sorry to tell you, but you are no more right than anyone else, and you do not know any more than anyone else how ZOS thinks.

This is so interesting since OP did put words in my mouth after I merely offered reasoning as to why the idea would not float based on comments Zos has made previously. Further, if you actually read what I said you would see that I actually referenced what Zos has said before making a significant part of your comment seem somewhat out of place.

But thx for the feedback.

OG_Kaveman

Pots last for 45+ seconds. If you want long buffs, use those. As for skills, you are given the choice, either use pots for longer buffs for them, costing either time for farming or gold for buying them or use skills, costing DPS or at least bar space. Then of course, there are sets you can wear too. All about opportunity costs.

Also, we do have really long buffs in the game, look at food buffs. 30 to 140 minutes, depending on food type and your passives.

Avrael

Well ok, fair enough, but not everyone is rich enough to down a pot every time you need a major buff. For raids and hard dungeons, ok, but for anything else, its a bit expensive for me. Not TOO expensive, but not really worth going for, im not an everyday trial raider or something. Also because i already get the crit bonus from Magelight, at all times, and thats wasted in the good Major Sorcery pots. I would much rather use a skill that gives me that one buff i need, and keeps me alive, because thats not that easy on mag sorc without surge.

And food buffs are in my eyes not really comparable with major buffs, like, give me a food that gives me major sorcery for 30min. and ill stop complaining, forever.

AcadianPaladin

Plenty of opinions here, but mine coincides with @Avrael with the caveat that I would rather see 45 -60 seconds. As far as I'm concerned, longer buffs simply make the game more enjoyable to play. It is simple as I enjoy less micromanagement, not more.

idk

OG_Kaveman wrote: »

Pots last for 45+ seconds. If you want long buffs, use those. As for skills, you are given the choice, either use pots for longer buffs for them, costing either time for farming or gold for buying them or use skills, costing DPS or at least bar space. Then of course, there are sets you can wear too. All about opportunity costs.

Also, we do have really long buffs in the game, look at food buffs. 30 to 140 minutes, depending on food type and your passives.

Thank you for this insightful response. Again, that we have choices and that buffs form various source and differing lengths are intended. Zos has stated the length of certain skills are intended for us to make a choice on using them or taking other action instead.

Ragnarock41

In my opinion, stronger - uncommon buffs should have some sort of limit considering this game has no cooldowns, so cost and uptime is a good way to balance them.

I'm sure you wouldn't want an ability like igneous weapons , which is a great example why longer buff times by itself does not make a great ability.

If you want longer uptimes on certain neccessary buffs, potions already exist and if you ask what is different with potions compared to abilities, the answer is really simple, there is a choice involved with potions, once you pop a potion you can't for another 45- seconds and this is a good thing.

Iskiab

Avrael wrote: »

If you honestly would use a worse skill over a clearly better one, just because you can choose it, i can and will not take you serious anymore. Thats ridiculous.

Your Argument would make sense when there would be fair skill choices, to REALLY choose from, but thats not the case in this game. Some skills are just MUCH better then others, and some are not worth using at all.

Again, noone uses the skill Flare over Mage Light or Expert Hunter in solo PvP, just because it exposes stealth. It costs 5,4k magicka, takes a long time to hit the ground, HAS to hit the ground, doesnt follow you, and you already need to be alliance line rank 7 to use it. There may be an illusion of choice, but there is no realistic choice to be made on most skills.

Edit: Also, i dont see how giving diffrent skills the same active time takes away your "choice". Care to explain to me, since im clearly missing something.

You just hit the nail on the head for why these balance passes are flawed. They looked at abilities from a tooltip perspective and not a ‘how does this ability actually work’ perspective.

If you want to know which abilities are best, just look at the range, radius, whether it needs a target or not, and whether it moves with you or not. Those seem to be all the factors they didn’t take into account.

Personally I loathed the buff duration when I started but now I’m used to it. Main issue is lag, with heavy lag you can’t even bar swop. How am I supposed to keep an 8 second buff up if I put it on my back bar?

leepalmer95

Keeping up buffs is one of the last things that define a good player tbh.

Lots of zerglings just let their important buffs drop when go heavy offensive/ defensive.

Finedaible

I'm no network engineer or anything, but wouldn't longer-lasting buffs mean less button presses per player at any given time and therefore less information the servers need to handle? I'm constantly running into situations where my button presses seem like they are being ignored or get awkwardly queued due to server lag in peak traffic times. I personally never understood why self-buffs last for such a short period of time. I probably wouldn't change buffs which give a resource back after expiring like Siphoning Strikes though, unless it got buffed to return more stam per hit.

Avrael

Finedaible wrote: »

I'm no network engineer or anything, but wouldn't longer-lasting buffs mean less button presses per player at any given time and therefore less information the servers need to handle? I'm constantly running into situations where my button presses seem like they are being ignored or get awkwardly queued due to server lag in peak traffic times. I personally never understood why self-buffs last for such a short period of time. I probably wouldn't change buffs which give a resource back after expiring like Siphoning Strikes though, unless it got buffed to return more stam per hit.

Im no expert too, and while it may have a veeery slight effect on lag overall, its probably insignificant and not really provable. However, missing a buff because the game ate the input due to lag or bugs or whatever, may feel a positive effect when you dont need to press a button every 10sec. but only once per half minute. When you dont have to press a key as often, you cant get the input ignored from the game as often.

Also i agree that a skill like Siphoning Strikes should be balanced/changed if they make it longer. I personally would like to see something like getting 500 ressource back every 5sec. instead of one huge chug at the end. I mean its not bad, and works fine, but its unreliable sometimes imo.
Actually, you do get back (less) ressources when you recast it right? Or only when it runs out? I know the description says something like "You get up to x back depending on active duration of the skill", but you cant trust descriptions in this game 100%. So many still are wrong, confusing, dont have enough information or are just badly formulated.

InvictusApollo

Upkeeping all the buffs in PvP is extremely boring. The longer they last, the better.

ccfeeling

Who likes rebuff constantly?

redspecter23

Longer durations allow for a weaker overall ability to work as you have fewer global cooldowns wasted in order to recast it. I'm a bit surprised ZOS didn't explore longer durations on weaker dots as a way to keep them more relevant while reducing up front damage in pvp situations. Having dots "ramp up" over time would also keep pve relevance while making them weaker in pvp situations where a purge could happen before the duration completes. It seems that too many dots are "front loaded" on damage which seems like the opposite of how they should work and intrudes on the spammable design space.

Perhaps it might be interesting to explore having many more abilities have a small passive component that is "always on" like bound armaments with an activated ability that, on its own, might be lackluster.

Iskiab

Avrael wrote: »

Finedaible wrote: »

I'm no network engineer or anything, but wouldn't longer-lasting buffs mean less button presses per player at any given time and therefore less information the servers need to handle? I'm constantly running into situations where my button presses seem like they are being ignored or get awkwardly queued due to server lag in peak traffic times. I personally never understood why self-buffs last for such a short period of time. I probably wouldn't change buffs which give a resource back after expiring like Siphoning Strikes though, unless it got buffed to return more stam per hit.

Im no expert too, and while it may have a veeery slight effect on lag overall, its probably insignificant and not really provable. However, missing a buff because the game ate the input due to lag or bugs or whatever, may feel a positive effect when you dont need to press a button every 10sec. but only once per half minute. When you dont have to press a key as often, you cant get the input ignored from the game as often.

Also i agree that a skill like Siphoning Strikes should be balanced/changed if they make it longer. I personally would like to see something like getting 500 ressource back every 5sec. instead of one huge chug at the end. I mean its not bad, and works fine, but its unreliable sometimes imo.
Actually, you do get back (less) ressources when you recast it right? Or only when it runs out? I know the description says something like "You get up to x back depending on active duration of the skill", but you cant trust descriptions in this game 100%. So many still are wrong, confusing, dont have enough information or are just badly formulated.

It will have an effect but very small. The game seems to struggle most with aoe effects and calculations: abilities like barrier, aoe heals, onslaught, etc... Some things like aoe healing ultimates and onslaught will have an extra second or so delay.

I’m pretty sure the issues are two fold. Rendering multiple outfits, motifs, styles, etc... on new players entering your area and excessive/poorly optimized calculations on distributing damage and healing.

Caim12

@InvictusApollo Agree

Greek_Hellspawn

Caim12 wrote: »

@InvictusApollo Agree

NECRO THREAD

Caim12

Buffs like 1 hour or 30 minutes instead of boring 20 sec rebuffing..

Ippokrates

Avrael wrote: »

There is no choosing important buffs.

Next Patch: "Hmm, should i use Entrophy which gives me 20sec. M.S. and that only when i hit an enemy, and also doesnt do any damage anymore, or Critical Surge, which gives me 33sec. of the same buff, heals me A LOT passivley, and i can use to buff up before a fight?"

For sure ill use Entrophy, because i just make that choice!

Yeah, take into consideration that Sorc has this choice. Necro, Magplar and to some extend NB, doesn't.

Avrael

Yall realize how old this thread is? :'D I JUST started playing this game again like a week ago (after i completley abandoned it after dragonhold), and boom someone necros my thread.

HOWEVER, im actually happy it did, because from what i can tell so far, nothing in these game mechanics changed. I still see a dozen diffrent buff timers for diffrent skills, sooo... i guess lets just keep this going.

Gilvoth

in all the mmo's i have played, buff's always lasted 1 hour or more.
that includes shields, defenses, and invisibility.

Avrael

@Gilvoth I havent played many other MMOs besides this one, and none of the big ones like WoW, but i still can assume youre sarcastic. :'D

I mean, i dont want buffs to last an hour or anything. But something slightly longer then: Buff, switch bars (which already can take some time with the always present lag of this game), do some attacks, and bar swap again to reapply 5 buffs, the first of which already lost half its duration once youre finished buffing.

Also again, i havent played WoW, but i would almost bet the buffs in that game are at least somewhat longer then 10-20sec? And ye, if someone wants to bring the argument again that you cant compare those games, i guess then you cant. I literally dont know. Maybe the buffs there are even shorter.