Doctor Archive

Traigus wrote, "The thing is, I can't think of a good way to limit the use of big buffs on small levele people..."

I imagine that when the designers thought of buffs (along with most things in this game), they also thought that economic constraints would ensure that they were used efficiently. Hence the difficulty of obtaining some of the resources, and the restriction of the (more powerful) secondary stat schematics to a higher skill box than their respective primary skill schematics... This (economic efficiency) has probably happened with armor -- the combination of its high cost and relatively short lifespan causes some people not to use it and others to use it only on occasion. It causes the rest of us to make lots of money to support our habit...

The unfortunate reality, however, is that the doctors have priced D buffs so low that they have become more or less essential to a majority (if not a vast majority) of players. Really, there is absolutely no reason not to be buffed -- with Ds -- at all times. 6k seems to be the going rate across servers... Well, with a set of D buffs and maybe marksman pistols 4 or the equivalent, anyone should be able to solo 11k baz nitch missions on dath until the buffsrun out... It'll be even worse now though, since vasarian brandy makes it a lot harder to be mind-incapped. At any rate, 6000 credits (and maybe a weapon) is all that separates anyone from 3 hours of regenerative uberness and the ability to make hundreds of thousands of credits in a fairly short time.

With everyone using D buffs, a typical PvE hunting group has absolutely no need of healers -- they can all spam specials at will and stay at full health and action even under duress... And that's just boring. Give that same group B buffs, for 300-900 per stat, and maybe those rancors or stormies can get a kill sometime, or at least keep the healers awake...

C buffs, for that matter, can hit up to 15 or 1600, and are plenty for most situations... (and I sold 'em, as well as Bs, with quite a bit of success -- some people actually do realize that +500 per stat is enough to kill those banthas...)

If Ds cost 25k a set and people could sell Bs for 5k, I bet a new market would emerge. A little late for that though, sadly...

So, although I'm not sure whether or not buffs are too powerful, I'm quite sure they're underpriced. It just doesn't make sense that something that powerful can be had for the same price as a roundtrip ticket to endor.

/looks for his flame blanket to protect himself...

I have to agree with the unbalancing issue of lower level players being able to recieve the benifits of powerful D enhancements, but, like you said, figuring out a way to counter this is problematic.

The only thing that i can think of, would be a new skill modifier spread throughout the different professions, that increases as you progress up your profession tree (similar to the damage mitigation.. +1 at low level, +2 at mid level, and +3 at the top of a given profession).. this modifier affects your ability to 'absorb' the enhancment... in a similar way that shock levels inhibit healing and buffing, a low level player with a +1 of this new modifier, would find a reduction in the amount of enhancement they are able to recieve... letsjust say they can only absorb70% of a given buff,while a master of that profession would be able to recieve 100% of the enhancment.

But of course, as it has already been stated, until we see how the combat pass shapes up, it's a little hard to say what needs to be done.

Ica -MBH- Intrepid

Redcobra -MD/MHS- Intrepid

This is common in most MMORPGs as they age. Its just how it goes. I dont think you can actually put a limit on every single thing you feel is "breaking" the game, because its just too massive of an undertaking. As a game matures and recieves expansions and patches and upgrades, as content is added or taken away, those who enter the game at a later time will have the advantage of not having to struggle through the early growing pains of the game world. Thus it appears to be much easier for them, and it probably is. But again, thats how the game goes and grows.

In EQ, there were never any spells or abilities that increased mana regen when I first started. I had to slug my character through fight/sit/med/fight/sit/med for months and months before the first really effective mana regen spells were put into place. Those who came in afterwards didnt know any different and grew accustomed to recieving these buffs on a regular basis. The game itself didnt change, the speed at which lower levels reached upper end content did, and they usually paid for it with bad reputations of not knowing what they were doing. Thats another story though.

As the game grows and ages, there will be many times where those of us who were in Beta or were here on the first night of play will find that those who came after certian points have it easier. And there will be some who resent it, and others who accept it. At some point though, everyone has to accept it if the game is to continue growing past that point. Im sure changes will be made here and there, but there will always be something out there that we didnt have at a certian point in the game that is now readily available to newer players.

Level restrictions are one way of fixing this issue...but seeing as we have no levels in this game, how would you go about doing that? You cant really put a certification on every character where at a certian point they are able to recieve D class buffs, because what if they like to mix and match their characters skills and they never reach that point? In my opinion, we should just accept it as it is and move on. Buffs are not too powerful in my opinion. If someone has the skill to kill a Nuna in 2 shots, it doesnt matter if their HAM is buffed to 3k+ or if its left as is. The Nuna will still die and the person will gain the exp for it. If they cant kill the Nuna, then theyre in for a long boring fight. heh heh

You are right about games getting easier as they mature. The thing is SWG is still fairly new. Content of most games doesn't start to get easy till the company has to add more powerful gear and abilities to expansions to sell them(mudflation is the term). They then let the over powering "things" go on for a little time and then fix them when they have sold as many expansions as they can and need to lower the bar for the next one.

I'm new to swg and today was the first day I bought buffs and hunted solo with buffs. Witha 15k wpn, 2k slice, 6k crate of moun, and a 20k(not the best stuff but its the real price)crate of brandy(still have alot of moun and brandy left) I flew to dant and tore through missions. I'm 8 boxes into tka and 5 into pistol. I made over 100k after paying for 2 sets of buffs, travel, and the brandy. I didn't wear armor except for part of the time I wore the pants I got from the jabba theme park. While solo on Tat or Rori I go through alot of stim b packs. With buffs I healed myself 5 times. It really did make it to easy though the problem isn't just about buffs. So I do think buffs are to powerful but I'm not sure of the best way to fix. There probably isn't a best way.

Oh and nerfing is part of mmorpg's and it always will be. You can't always create a good balance by adding to other areas. Some times the best way to is take away.

Nearly every class that has crafting suffers from the problem of not being able to sell stuff during the leveling process. Just make d's have a min. med over 90, that would help quite a bit by itself.

It might, but Med use over 90 would probably only hit self-buffers.

The people passing out D buffs to everyone with a wallet are usually master docs.

The packs the masters would normally sell to the self-buffers would then be free for the docs to use on other people...

Lots of extra packs = lower buff prices.

More people can afford buffs...

We actually get more Buff D's on every random Bothan in the game.

Well, that's the way I see it playing out.

The combat pass will make a big difference. Gotta wait till I see it before I can make a judgement on a personal level.

-T