Game Guides Archive
Thread: Is buffing ruining gameplay?
Malkuth
Wed Aug 25, 2004 5:03 pm
#27
The only reason I think buffs sucks is cause of this.
Basic play session of player in todays SWG.
Log on.
Go to major city find a master doctor.
Stand in line from 2 mins to hour to get a three hour buff.
Do a few missions to pay for buff.
Play for three hours to get use out of buff. Or PVP and prey you dont die. If die start over or log.
Thats what everyone does in the game. If you skip the first part and dont buff you just socialize.
I love the old days when your sitting in a cantina no buffs around yet. And a group of Imps or rebels invade. You Go overt and battle. Win or die you could fight.
In todays SWG if your not buffed dont ever bother to even try to fight a buffed OVert enemy.
Thats all thier is too the game today.
And when the space expansion comes out none of this matters cause everyone will be fighting in space. Leave the ground battles to the million jedi running around.
foddder
Wed Aug 25, 2004 8:45 pm
#28
I guess my beef is that i really miss the group hunting. Buffing seems to eliminate that.
I feel like im playing a single-player game these days.
admiraljz
Wed Aug 25, 2004 10:02 pm
#29
Buffs themselves aren't ruing the game, per se, but definitely have contributed heavily to the ruination of PvE and PvP combat. The combination of insanely high buffs, 90%+ resistance armor, and near unhittable defenses (which have mostly been fixed already) made and make individual players into immortal juggernauts. When you're hitting someone 20 times with your best special attack from a 500+ damage weapon and don't even make their HAM bars move, something is wrong.
In my opinion, once the combat revamp causes special attacks to no longer damage our HAM bars, buffs should be limited exclusively to overt players and perhaps only inside faction bases (give them a reason to exist?). To make up for the loss in revenue for the doctors that make a living buffing people, wound treatment would be moved from medic to Doctor and be best available inside medical centers, with droids only allowing heals in the field without augmenting them. Since HAM would no longer be damaged by special attacks, foods and spice would be sufficient for most PvE hunting. No one will be soloing Krayts or NS Elders that way, but that was never the intention. Were it not for suicide by special attack costs, I could easily complete level 30+ missions without a buff and only 50% armor. In fact, just today I killed level 99 quenker missions all day with a full buff and no armor (so no HAM costs), and actually got bit by a quenker only2 or 3 times. Sprayshot and/or fullauto were dropping them before they got within 30m of me. So decent-level hunting can still be done when HAM costs aren't a factor.
For me, gameplay and combat would be greatly enhanced by the ability to do more things unbuffed and with minimal armor, and I think that's what the aim of the combat revamp is going to be. Buffs should help you but not make you immortal, and armor should definitely have real tradeoffs (protection vs penalties, as originally intended). I'd hate to see all the docs losing the money they make on buffs now, so there definitely needs to be a way for that prof to still make money. If doctors were solely able to heal wounds, they'd definitely still be in high demand, and with a free enterprise system, could still charge full-buff money for tidying up players' wounds.
IMO buffs should at the very least be limited to double the existing stat, as entertainer buffs are now, giving more meaning to careful stat migration, and providing additional hitpoints for tough tasks without turning people into walking tanks. When you really break it down, a buffed up elite PvP template player in the best composite is a 200x harder kill than an armored AT-ST. That's just wrong, and in my opinion game breaking to an extent.
BONJORNO
Wed Aug 25, 2004 10:56 pm
#30
I think its Alot more fun pvping without buffs and icant wait till the nurf 
it will be more fun on raids and make groups stick together more
it will be more fun on raids and make groups stick together more
frankiemachine
Thu Aug 26, 2004 12:36 am
#31
amen people need to learn how to manage their money, i have a doc and in order to make good buffs it took me months and lots of money. ie work :-P. 10k is nothing go do some missions take up a crafting proff. hell my main was an arch for 3 month before i even started a combat proff now hes a jedi. SOE is not gonna make everyone happy. What ever changes they make are gonna have some negative effect on somebody. so yes people need to learn how to deal with it like i have and so many other that have been playing since the early daze and have gotten screwed by all the nerfs. bitching will get you nowhere.lol DEAL DEAL DEAL!!!!
d0qtrX
Thu Aug 26, 2004 6:26 am
#33
It depends on your style of gameplay.
And nobody is forcing you to buff. If you want to play old-skool and do actual group hunting unbuffed, go for it.
in PvP, though, everybody's always fully buffed.
MastahHealah
Thu Aug 26, 2004 6:58 am
#34
The fact is, since grps dont share xp, there will never be grouping in the old-fashioned sense. Never.
What is the point of a grp? If you dont do any damage, you dont get any xp. Plain and simple. What benefit does a grp give you to gaining xp? Absolutely none.
The only people who grp are those who dont need xp...ie hunting exceptional mobs like krayts, NS elders, Corvette missions etc
Buffs havent ruined anything....the way to earn xp certainly has!
Ryche_Mykola
Thu Aug 26, 2004 7:13 am
#35
MastahHealah wrote:
The fact is, since grps dont share xp, there will never be grouping in the old-fashioned sense. Never.
What is the point of a grp? If you dont do any damage, you dont get any xp. Plain and simple. What benefit does a grp give you to gaining xp? Absolutely none.
The only people who grp are those who dont need xp...ie hunting exceptional mobs like krayts, NS elders, Corvette missions etc
Buffs havent ruined anything....the way to earn xp certainly has!
Couldn't agree more. What if you are also trying to gather Meat or Hide? Grouping lowers your harvesting by 40%. Are you trying to get XP? See what happens when you are grouped with a Master Swordsman or Pikeman. You'll barely get any xp.
Doing high end content - you HAVE to group : Maybe hang out in Mos Eisley if you want to find hunting groups for normal creatures.
Buffs, Armor, Shields, Synth Steak, Stacking Defenses, 75% PvP dam reduction, Mitigation : This is what causes you to do no damage.
Naquiel
Thu Aug 26, 2004 8:34 am
#36
Malkuth wrote:
The only reason I think buffs sucks is cause of this.
Basic play session of player in todays SWG.
Log on.
Go to major city find a master doctor.
Stand in line from 2 mins to hour to get a three hour buff.
Do a few missions to pay for buff.
Play for three hours to get use out of buff. Or PVP and prey you dont die. If die start over or log.
Thats what everyone does in the game. If you skip the first part and dont buff you just socialize.
I love the old days when your sitting in a cantina no buffs around yet. And a group of Imps or rebels invade. You Go overt and battle. Win or die you could fight.
In todays SWG if your not buffed dont ever bother to even try to fight a buffed OVert enemy.
Thats all thier is too the game today.
And when the space expansion comes out none of this matters cause everyone will be fighting in space. Leave the ground battles to the million jedi running around.
Well i play different. I login, and go do some killing. The only buff i need is a brandy, And the only other thing i carry is a pack of stim b's. I dont have my character dependant on buffs but i still can take on many high lvl mobs in the game. Yes i do have to becareful on who i fight and when to use my specials, but i do fight well to keep things entertaining for hours and i dont have to wait for buffs. Also with the template i have i can go pvp and die and not worry about having to get buffs to get back into the fight. Oh and i rarely die in pvp battle, unless more that 4 ppl gang me. Yes buffs are nice to have, but after the rebalance, i dont feel they will be to useful except in pvp battles.
Edit: Almost forgot, My armor is not the best in the world. Most of my armor has good enc instead of resists.
Message Edited by Naquiel on 08-26-2004 08:36 AM
Message Edited by Naquiel on 08-26-2004 08:40 AM
Izhozz
Thu Aug 26, 2004 10:29 am
#37
Is buffing ruining gameplay? YES!!!
Wanna grind a crafting pro? Well first you have to get buffed and do some Jantas and then buy resources to grind with.. Buff,buff,and more buffs.This game is ONLY ABOUT BUFFS! Why should I buff myself when im not even sure IF I can play for 2-3 hours? 2222 in Pikeman went fairly easy without buffs,but thats just about it...IF THERE IS ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS GAME THAT IS NOT STAR WARS ITS THE DOCTORS WITH THEIR BUFFS! WHAT ABOUT THE MOVIES?!!??! DID HAN SOLO WEAR 80% COMP ARMOR AND WAS BUFFED? NO!
GWAAAAH!!!!! NERF TEH BUFF!
AlphaMaldorian
Thu Aug 26, 2004 11:43 am
#38
Buffing doesn't affect my game play, but I know when I get sloppy a$$ drunk that my game play most surely suffers.
brandi51
Thu Aug 26, 2004 11:52 am
#39
I don't think buffs are ruining anything...sure it was ok running around with a group of 20 people un-buffed, but back then that pretty much kept me at marksmen and brawler level, once i discovered buffs/armor i made Master Swordsmen and i'm having tons of fun.
And as for Han solo having 80% comp, that's totally irrelevent, did han solo have to shoot stormtroopers a 100 times to kill them? Did he do damage to himself while shooting them? Plenty of things don't go with the movies, in the movies there weren't battle with jedi in the middle of major imperial centers, there weren't even a whole lot of jedi. If this were the movies, the rebels couldn't whine "we need something to compete with the at-st" because in the movies they didn't have anything to compete with the at-st (on the ground at least), so while we're talking about the movies, why don't we nerf all the melee professions because in the movies there was no way a fencer could take down a pistoleer.