Buff Bar Overhaul needed

[Draccus]

The current buff bar (the area of the screen where your active buffs and debuffs are displayed) needs some major improvement. It used to be relatively rare that you had enough buffs to full the screen but with boat buffs and tons of set bonuses, it's become rare that my buff bar ISN'T full.

Not being able to see active buffs and debuffs isn't just annoying, it impacts gameplay. It's hard to determine when some of the mid-duration boosts, like Titan's Grip, Sneak of Shadows, Divine Power, are ending. It can also be very difficult to see if you have a debuff, like Curse, when you're standing on top of your party members and the overhead icons are popping up all over the place.

I won't claim to be a programmer, so I don't know how difficult this is to implement, but I can offer some suggestions.

- Use the top icon row for long duration buffs (longer than, say, 5 min) and the bottom icon for short duration buffs and debuffs.
- Combine Elemental Protection into one buff with numbers for each element in each corner of the icon.
- Allow us to right-click and hide a buff icon. Yes, it's downright hysterical when someone casts Merfolk's Blessing and Mass Camo on me in ToD. But while I'm laughing at your creative hilarity, it's hiding buffs.
- Allow us to right-click a buff and drop it.
- Allow the use of the entire screen for buffs. Currently, the buffs are cut off approximately 2/3 of the way across the screen.
- Give us a toggle to display or not display boat buffs. These are long duration buffs that we cannot influence once they are cast. They are, generally, all active or all inactive. They can only be refreshed on the boat so there's really no need to see them once they are active. Allow us to toggle the display of these buffs on and off so we can see them while refreshing them but hide them once in a quest. Also, ensure the toggle can be assigned to a hotkey!

[skyjuice]

I concur. Not having know which buffs are cut-off is just a waste of time and resources.

[Angelus_dead]

Some other things that would help:

1. Separate row for buffs and debuffs.
2. Switch display priority from oldest first to youngest first.
3. Remove status icons for permanent effects like self-paladin features, monk stance, and set bonus.
4. Allow players to toggle a "smart" status mode, where each effect has been flagged by a designer as important or not, and low-importance effects have their icon suppressed after 30 seconds if your buff list is full. (Deathward and Power Surge would be considered high importance, Tumble and Camoflage low importance)

[cupajoe]

/signed

I usually don't get ship buffs before certain raids just so that I can see more of my active buffs and de-buffs.

[Nospheratus]

2. Switch display priority from oldest first to youngest first.

Something as simple as this could possibly be included even in this update and would work wonders.

Ordered from the right to the left. Debuffs on the right, all buffs to the left ordered by remaining time. The ones with less time on the right.

If this is done, even if the set bonuses and the stances stay first there's still plenty of room to see the debuffs and the most important short buffs, like haste, rage, displacement, divine favor, etc.

[Seosamh]

Just casting my vote, any improvement would be great.

[Molotov]

yes yes please please fix the buff bar

[Seosamh]

One idea:

1. Have all buffs auto-hide (like you can do with the Windows start bar), mouse over to make the full list appear.

2. When a buff has 0<60 sec left, its icon appears (static). Maybe even have the icon flash for the last 10 sec or so.

3. Have all debuffs show separately (static).

[Draccus]

Some other things that would help:

1. Separate row for buffs and debuffs.
2. Switch display priority from oldest first to youngest first.
3. Remove status icons for permanent effects like self-paladin features, monk stance, and set bonus.
4. Allow players to toggle a "smart" status mode, where each effect has been flagged by a designer as important or not, and low-importance effects have their icon suppressed after 30 seconds if your buff list is full. (Deathward and Power Surge would be considered high importance, Tumble and Camoflage low importance)

One idea:

1. Have all buffs auto-hide (like you can do with the Windows start bar), mouse over to make the full list appear.

2. When a buff has 0<60 sec left, its icon appears (static). Maybe even have the icon flash for the last 10 sec or so.

3. Have all debuffs show separately (static).

Wow, great suggestions and far better than mine!

[Hendrik]

I'd be happy, for a start, to see all the buffs and not just 28.5 we see now.

Anything beyond that is gravy.

[Calebro]

Simply consolidate all ship buffs into a single icon. With this, you'll have only 1 more icon on your page than we had before ships existed, when the smaller buff bar was but a minor occasional/situational annoyance.

This, in conjunction with a reverse order of shortest duration buffs on the right, will solve all of our problems.

[Gummi]

yes please the buff bar only show LONG duration buffs and airship buffs is one of the main reasons i stopped playing my warchanter please FIX this

[dcp101]

/signed

[bryanmeerkat]

Didnt even read the whole thing , but signed as Im sure its better than the current system which is terrible

[doubledge]

/signed.

[sweez]

All of it, yes.

[Chette]

/signed

Another option? Order buffs on your buff bar by duration, so that you can see which ones are about to end. Permanent buffs/debuffs on a separate row.

[Saravis]

/signed
I was about to post the same thing.

Its a pain not only not knowing how much time you have left on buffs, but also not knowing what debuffs have been cast on you. Oh, I'm diseased? Well how the heck was I supposed to know that with it hidden away.

[elraido]

With how sort of buffs most paladins have, it can be a MAJOR pain in the butt trying to figure out what ones are about to expire.

[Draccus]

I'm not letting this thread die until I see some buff bar improvement! Where ya at, Codeshaper, oh master of the UI?

For every day I can't see all my buffs, I'm going to kill a kobold.