NPC Buff Casters

Waldoff

Waldoff

Administrator
Staff member
First, the idea:

Every class guild in the game (with the exception of necromancers and SKs) have an NPC that can cast the buffs of that class for a small fee. The fee would increase as you level, and as you gain more exp into AA/Tomes.

Cleric- Heals. Purifications. AC Line. Sybol HP line. AC/HP line. Culminates in Aego.
Paladin - Heals, Purifications, Paladin HP line culminating in SSS.
Ranger- Spirit of Wolf, Mark/Call of predator
Druid - Heals, Cures, Spirit of Wolf, Scale of Wolf, Spirit of Eagle, Damage Shields, Fire/Cold resists culminating in seasons. Protection of Wood culminating in PoNature, PoCabbage.
Shaman - Stats culminating in Focus. PR/DR resist. Haste. Acumen. Spirit of Wolf.
Enchanter- Int/Wis buffs, Mana buff, Mana Regen culminating in KEI, Resist Magic, Haste culminating in empower.
Wizard - Blades, Translocate to Bind
Magician - Damage Shield, Summon Weapons, Summon EB stone
Beastlord - Vigor and Bliss lines

(This change is going to be in conjunction with a buff duration increase to many of the lower level buffs.)

The first question most will ask is why utilize so many different buff NPCs, and why to put them only in class guilds. Well, the first reason is thematics. It makes sense and is less of an eyesore to have actual caster guilds offer their classes buffs to those higher than indifferent to their faction. Second, it takes us away form a "one stop shop" buff bot type system.

The new player will have to decide where it is worth running to to get buffs. For a wizard, it may very well be worth grabbing a Breeze from the enchanter guild, but there is a greater added cost in time spent per buff after that you want. Perhaps Breeze is worth it, but are cleric buffs? Time spent in conjunction with money spent per buff helps keep the "you always need ALL buffs" mentality from permeating too heavily into the low levels. If you want to spend the time getting all buffs divorced from having a specific class in your group, you can, but the maximizing group or individual will likely stop npc-buffing before full buffs. This also keeps a fair bit of the advantage of actually having a buffing class in your group, or being a buffing class yourself.

Older players will have a difference choice structure, especially in the cases where they have access to buff bots. In these cases - buff bot away. Soulbinding and relic buffs will likely keep those of you using buff bots continuing to do so. At the same time, this change lowers the relative disadvantage newer players have at not having buff bot access. A new 65 group will not be decked out in full soulbound relic buffs, but with this change the cleric will likely have KEI and the tank will likely have Empower.

We hope to further this by making the buffs pretty damned cheap until you start getting into high AA or tome exp. The number would be different by buff type, and would scale differently. These numbers have not yet been decided - but I am hovering somewhere around a fresh 65 paying 15-30 platinum for a KEI, Aego or Empower.


So - this is what I need from you all. Do you think the buff distribution looks good amongst the classes? Do you think a buff should be added, subtracted or moved? What end prices do you think are reasonable, both for low levels, fresh 65s and tomes/AAed characters? Do you see any unforeseen problems with the system? And any other constructive comments.

When making a comment, keep in mind that we are not focusing this just towards the high end. The fact that the druid buffs (in Kelethin and Surefall) will not get a lot of high player action is not necessarily a bad thing. One or two lowbies utilizing them as they learn the game is worthwhile. The same goes with the fact that Shaman buffs are not as prevalent. Depending on what city you base yourself out of, there will be a different array of buff-npcs available, and different time-cost structures to getting all your required buffs. I like this aspect - if you are in a group that nearly always has a cleric or enchanter it may make sense to base yourself out of a city different than a group with a different class layout.
 
And yet another heck of a good idea. I support this for sure, it would make being a *fresh* any level (read 65) more appealing for newcomers. The idea of having a buff bot system speaks moreso to the newer playerbase, but who isnt all for more new playerbase?
 
I like it. Not having buff bots was the worst as a new player. The only issue you might run into is that everyone groups in Athica or Sadri, and Athica for sure won't offer access to some of those buffs meaning that most players will never or hardly ever take advantage of those buff bots.

I don't know what classes are in Sadri I never hang out with frogs.
 
Forgot beastlord buffs.

I envision Athica being THE spot at 65 (forgoing Sadri.) You have, MoP, Port, and Cleric/Pally/Enchanter/Mage/Druid all in very close proximity.

Is it the intent to do single target buffs, group buffs, both? What about ancient spells (shaman haste is something I use daily, and the duration is poop!.)


Would you consider donations for ports to other spots instead of just bind? I usually toss people 40pp to port my 2 somewhere so I don't have to bot dance my wizard in. I would happily pay a guild porter guy for that service. This may be a good plat sink for the economy over the long run.
 
quote Waldoff:
"Every class guild in the game (with the exception of necromancers and SKs) have an NPC that can cast the buffs of that class for a small fee."
Terrible idea,less player interaction is always bad,next we get pocket clerics as on live.

quote Waldoff:
"buff duration increase to many of the lower level buffs"
This cant hurt,and while you are at it make low level Shammy buffs group target.
 
Ulandx said:
Terrible idea,less player interaction is always bad
Click to expand...

Buff botting isnt really player interaction. The current situation usually just leads to people getting their guildies info or standing around begging for buffs for an hour.
 
Should have 1 buffer in each major city. Guild buff bot, give the bot eldrich spell scrolls to unlock relic buffs for your guild. people in DB get free level appropriate buffs to help out the new people. The buffs should be free because if it cost more then a few pp people will just log in buffbots and do sb relics for free which is a pointless waste of time and really annoying when boxing.

There is the mop/players for ports.
 
Buff distribution looks good. Id recommend all buffs lasting at min 1hr. The longer higher end buffs (kei/aego) should cost 20p aka definately more than the reagent.
 
I'd like to point out that there are problems with certain deitys (Marlow...) and ecrtain class factions (Paladins, clerics). I wouldn't be surprised if there were more then just this one, something that should be considered/adressed.
 
Relic buffs or bust if you ask me. How about, if you have all your relics/ancients/runics completed you can have access to relic buffs and thus grin hard.
 
It would almost have to be a npc outside the guild, as nwaij points out , many alignment and classes do not mix well, ie. as a lawful evil warrior will I be able to get a SSS line from the pally guild?

Buffbots have been implemented in many mmorpgs successfully, maybe it should be done sort of like in the players house instead and add a universal buffbot npc there or the majordomo banker in house, or /key up to area in major towns like the pocket plane or house with all the various classes buffbots.

Any buffbot though should be limited on what they buff upto and to take it even a step further maybe it should be generated via point pool like they have done on live by giving the buff-vendor unwanted or hard to sell magic items or implement buff token drops to be given to the buff-vendor and such looted in dalaya to bring your buff point pool up.

Each buff would cost set amount of points or tokens. The best buffs costing a whole lot and even ancient/relic buff tokens could be added via token drops in the higher tier content area's.
 
Last edited:
I don't see a reason why the buffing NPC's couldn't be located just outside their respective guilds.

Also, even as a guy who has access to many buffbots I love this idea and could definitely see myself using it depending on duration!
 
Waldoff said:
Magician - Damage Shield, Summon Weapons, Summon EB stone
Click to expand...

Since you mention summoning, maybe add a searfire to that list? I wouldn't add peridots for the obvious reasoning but since weapons / eb stone were listed a searfire option might also be warranted.

Just my 2cp.

Edit: Also, no love for Necromancer DMF? Was this intentionally left off? I know everyone forgets about DMF... :p
 
Love this idea by the way. I'll preface this with the fact that I didn't have time to breeze over each and every post in this thread so I apologize in advance if it has already been brought up. Obviously there will be some race/class/faction restrictions involved with some of the class buffs desired (Surefall, Halas, Grobb, Cleric/Paladin guilds etc.) so maybe instead of going that route, there could be a HUB for each continent that is easily accessible from the MoP and is neutral for all race/class/deity combinations.
 
saintonan said:
That would make druid, ranger and beastlord buffs very inconvenient to get.
Click to expand...

That is the entire point of having them in their respective class guilds, so that you have to weigh the time/cost of running to get those extra buffs.

I was simply responding to Nwaij's concern that there are certain faction issues within certain guilds and perhaps putting them just outside of the guilds themselves would be a fair compromise between keeping the buffing NPC's at those locations and avoiding potential faction issues.
 
been suggested a million times, and i still think it's a good idea. however, i personally think the buffs should be free. at this point in the game, i don't see any reason to penalize players for not having buffbots.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom