Remove Ship Buffs

[patang01]

Remove ship buffs? So we strive to increase renown for bigger boats but there are no perks?

I've never been in a group where anyone told me that I had to take their invite, their buffs or else. And I've never been in a quest or raid where I was denied because my guild don't have the perks and unless I have them I'm gimp.

The buffs are good as 1 hour buffs, such as greater elemental resists where you're likely to use a lot of SP (such as Epic chrono) and this takes some pressure off casters. But the impact of the different shrines are in reality minimal compared to gear. It's your choice to use it or not. Unless there's evidence of rampant denial to run quests without them I assume this has more to do about a feeling of OP or maybe having to wait for someone getting the buffs before running quest.

[Khanyth]

I wouldnt mind see them go either... Espacially the energy resistance make a few lower level dungeons just far too easy... (taming the flames once was really a challenging quest, now its more like a hot shower)

Its not like the game is easy enough as it is atm. I really like to be challenged even on lower levels and yes i do pug (what makes an easy dungeon hard often enough).

So.... don't use them? I just don't see why this is so hard to understand.

To the "dont use them if you dont like them" crowed: Even if i dont take them someone will have them all on and again just run through dungeons he would wipe in the first room without them... So it doesnt really help the "game is too easy" problem...

P.S. my guild does have all the buffs.

You want to remove ship buffs because if you don't take them then someone else will and will make the lower level quest too easy?

Simple: when making your LFM, specify no ship buffs.

Again........ if you don't want to use them: don't. If you don't want to run with people who use them: don't.

This really isn't that hard of a concept

[samthedagger]

I like ship buffs. There is a certain point at which you are so uber that being even more uber doesn't make a significant difference. For everyone else, it helps level the playing field so that even gimps can contribute in some way.

Yes, I am a socialist. Deal with it.

[Shaz]

My biggest complaint with ship buffs is their spam. The buff bar is full of **** now to the point that some buffs aren't listed, and examining people who have ship buffs is a pain in the butt - you can't tell what level / class they are, and more importantly its difficult to quickly figure out if you need to cast your buffs on them or not (will it stack? do they have something better already? ect).

As far as the buffs they provide, please note there are quite a few spell effects in the game that can mimic these effects - a bard's song will give you similar bonuses to hit and damage, recitation can give AC bonus, ect ect - and in my experience you never know if you'll be in a party where you'll get those buffs or not, so this isn't much different than grouping with a bard or cleric that casts similar buffs, in my opinion.

But yeah, Turbine is out to make $$ from the DDO store, so I don't expect these to go away anytime soon. I'm just glad they aren't more imbalancing then they are (provide effects that are unobtainable elsewhere, for example).

Most of my alts don't get ship buffs, because I don't bother to make my other guilds invite all of my many alts. So I often deal with not having ship buffs, and honestly it doesn't really make or break anything. I do find annoying the idea that someone would make a build specifically around ship buffs, but hey, I make builds specifically around buying the +2 supreme tomes from the DDO store. Lets me make more interesting and varied characters, which is really what I like about this game.

[stainer]

They're overpowered, easy mode, and are currently ruining the game. You are gimp if you don't use them because everyone else does. People even factor them into their planned builds. They're stupid. Do away with them and think of something else.

Experience shrines are cool.

I get them sometimes. I have ran hard and elite raids without them. They are so unimportant to me if you say "wait while I get ship buffs" and I am ready to start, I will kick you out of my group. Even if you are in my guild.

[~jradnut]

I side with the OP on this, maybe get some other perks to replace.

On the other hand, I dont want to have to change my battle cry from, "Fear my mighty halfling wrath!" to
"Stop laughing at my cute halfling dimples!!" ...*flounce*

[krud]

I just wish that the ship shrines didn't look so much like urinals. You know... the stone head w/ mouth wide open ones. I'm never sure what to do when I walk up to it. Do I click on it, or unzip my pants and relieve myself?

btw - I really don't care what they do with ship buffs. I'm too lazy to bother with them most of the time.

[Geodude07]

You guys have to keep in mind the market Turbine is marketing towards. Its what i call the WoW syndrome. More and more casual players are getting into the mmorpg genre. and by casual I don't mean people who don't play often, or seriously. I mean players who don't play games for a challenge, they like to have most everything handed to them. Blizzard was the first major company to buckle down to these players, and since then they have become a MMO superpower of sorts as these players vastly out number challenge oriented players. So now all other companies are replicating their business models of running easy simple to play games devoid of challenge as casual players don't like challenges, they like to just have fun.


Just step back and look at mmorpgs now, and then look back at them 10 years ago. there were times when games had quest givers who had no indicator that they gave a quest, you had to actually talk to the town's npc's to find quests. death had penalties, experience loss, item loss, and in some cases, character loss. And many many other things. Some companies try to cater to both crowds, but it just ends in casuals being frustrated about not being able to handle content designed for core gamers or hardcore gamers. so it inevitably gets dumbed down. and eventually they'll stop attempting to cater to core gamers all together. MMO companies are businesses, just like any other, and they aim to make money.

I miss the times when playing a mmorpg made you a complete loser. That was the prime of gaming.

I would not call it dumbing it down, but more of a better business model (as you say) and even a better playing model. Yes it is cool to feel "hardcore" and it must feel powerful to refer to anything that is not excruciatingly hard as being "dumbed down" but if companies want to make sales they need to have "fun" and "time management". You use to be a loser for playing MMORPG's because they required much more time, and if you had to go do something in real life....well too bad! or else you would die and hours and hours of work would go away. You were low level? better get some friends or welcome to ganking and watching your body be robbed.

You can have a challenging game without needing painful systems, those two are not as related as some like to think. The trouble is knowing quests makes them easy and if nothing ever really gets updated it just gets easier and easier. Many quests in ddo would be nice and hard if you had no prior experience of them. You would have to actually solve puzzles. Now everyone pretty much can follow a guide or knows the way which makes anything easy. Demon souls for example is a hard game, but if you know how everything works and what will come at you...it is easy.

Do you really think DDO would benefit from just stripping ship buffs, throwing xp penalties our way when we die, making the grind longer and make up some cheap challenges? It would make us go slower in quests, and may force some bad players to get a little better. But as a whole it would still be easy just more annoying. Thats not good gaming its only for those who like pain served up with it.

the 'they dont make you use them' and the 'why does other people's character's using them make you gimp' sentiments= its called power creep. its not silly, its basic reasoning. If new standards for gear/character power/resources are put in the game, and quests and groups are expecting/needing that, it is highly detrimental. so +3 to hit, +3 to damage and all the other extremely powerful buffs you get from ships, dont increase the overall expectation of power from toons? your high!

Note: lev 70 ship here. people should be compelled to be guilded for nothing else than what it was before ships + maybe some conveniences. Making guilded characters more powerful narrows the gameplay options. fuels a power creep, is an annoyance to maintain and overall takes away from what (IMO) DDO should be, which is more gritty d&d and less UBAR l33t bullpucky

/signed

The power creep part is true, though many times I dont bother with the buffs even if they are kinda useful. I hate relying on buffs that can go away in an hour, and I hate using time to keep buffing at ships. Ill grab it once in awhile and it is never a huge difference for me. I still support my party, still hit, still can stun, still kill a lot of things. Yeah a +3 to hit and damage would help a bit but it doesn't make you suck not to use them. I mean maybe I am just getting a different experience out of this...but ive never seen someone get buffs and suddenly be amazing or really any different then the person i was partying with before.

Though I do wish for more "gritty dnd" I like the ship, though I think its sole use for buffs and some transportation is boring. I also wish you had a trinket to just warp to it from any place in town instead of running to the ship door.

I mean greensteel makes a way bigger difference than ship buffs and no one gets mad about those, I mean they are very powerful weapons and they do not disappear after an hour, and yet thats fine but a few bonuses to hit and stat boosts are evil? Its not like I stare at a fully ship buffed player in awe as they tear through the quest leaving me feeling like a total fool and noob...

[Thrudh]

+2 to every stat, +2 to hit, +2 damage, natural AC, +1 to every skill, 30 point resist, etc etc etc, all at level 1.
And you don't think that's OP.

I find it funny that most longer term players constantly ask for less Easy Buttons, and constantly complain that the game has been dumbed down so much, but when these buffs are called into question they don't have a problem with it at all.

So let me ask you, do you think the game has been dumbed down too much? Do you think it's too easy? Do you want more challenge? Do you want less Easy Buttons?
If you answered Yes to these questions then how can you think they aren't OP?

These were valid complaints before guild ships ever existed. Now, with them, it basically means that if you die anytime at ALL before level 10 or so while running level appropriate content, for any reason, you need to learn to play.
These buffs simply compound the issue.

The hour-long 30 point resists are the main OP factor for lower levels... Those are pretty huge...

[Thrudh]

My biggest complaint with ship buffs is their spam. The buff bar is full of **** now to the point that some buffs aren't listed, and examining people who have ship buffs is a pain in the butt - you can't tell what level / class they are, and more importantly its difficult to quickly figure out if you need to cast your buffs on them or not (will it stack? do they have something better already? ect).

This is a good point... I really hate the buff bar and examining other players now

[Lorien_the_First_One]

+2 to every stat, +2 to hit, +2 damage, natural AC, +1 to every skill, 30 point resist, etc etc etc, all at level 1.
And you don't think that's OP.

Yes, it absolutely is. Except that an unbuffed character with that OP Korthos gear can destroy Korthos and the Harbor anyway without the buffs so it really makes little difference.

Now if you also want to remove all korthos gear, well and pretty much all the fancy sets that have been added in L1-9 quests since it went F2P, you might have an argument.

[Xithos]

/not signed.

I will take everything that makes leveling up a TR even quicker and easier than it is already because while I do not enjoy leveling at all some of my characters needed tweaking to be viable again after game changes over the course of several years. I enjoy the endgame and like to sail over the speed bump that is everything before level 20.

[Bodic]

OP what is your position on P buffs.

Also if we could revert to the OG(06) unskipable starter area that weeds out the horribad.

and ship buffs r not OP

[Urvine]

I would not call it dumbing it down, but more of a better business model (as you say) and even a better playing model. Yes it is cool to feel "hardcore" and it must feel powerful to refer to anything that is not excruciatingly hard as being "dumbed down" but if companies want to make sales they need to have "fun" and "time management". You use to be a loser for playing MMORPG's because they required much more time, and if you had to go do something in real life....well too bad! or else you would die and hours and hours of work would go away. You were low level? better get some friends or welcome to ganking and watching your body be robbed.

You can have a challenging game without needing painful systems, those two are not as related as some like to think. The trouble is knowing quests makes them easy and if nothing ever really gets updated it just gets easier and easier. Many quests in ddo would be nice and hard if you had no prior experience of them. You would have to actually solve puzzles. Now everyone pretty much can follow a guide or knows the way which makes anything easy. Demon souls for example is a hard game, but if you know how everything works and what will come at you...it is easy.

Do you really think DDO would benefit from just stripping ship buffs, throwing xp penalties our way when we die, making the grind longer and make up some cheap challenges? It would make us go slower in quests, and may force some bad players to get a little better. But as a whole it would still be easy just more annoying. Thats not good gaming its only for those who like pain served up with it.

I call it dumbed down, because its below the original standards of gaming. Core gaming is when games didn't have infinite lives, and checkpoints. Hardcore is the stuff beyond that, and challenge based gameplay is what gives core and hardcore gamers fun. Now I have no problem with games aimed at casual markets, everyone should have games for them, my problem is that now all games are being turned towards the casuals market. Gaming made you a loser back then because they were mostly complicated, difficult and a waste of time. Yeah obviously people played alot more than others, but people also played alot less, and they were all branded the same.

I see your reasoning about the static dungeons that was a problem I had as well. I loved the first time I ran a dungeon when the game first came out, not knowing what was around the corner. But this stuff becoming memorized is part of any game. if you've been through it once before, you'll likely know it the second time through. most developers make up for this with timing based or reflex based challenges that are difficult regardless of whether or not you know it. Some dungeons actually do have these mechanics. But the ultimate solution *random dungeon generator* is a reasonably difficult thing to accomplish in games that don't have simple mechanics.

I don't think Turbine will benefit for removing ship buffs, or any of the other crutches that make gameplay easier. As I've said in my OP, they're a business and they're looking to make money and right now the money is in casuals. At no point did I say ship buffs should be removed, though I would like them to be. That 'annoyance' is what original gamers found challenging. casual gaming seems to be about getting to the top. core and hardcore gaming seems to be about overcoming obstacles to get to the top. and the top for all gamers is 'Game Over'.

[Oreg]

the 'they dont make you use them' and the 'why does other people's character's using them make you gimp' sentiments= its called power creep. its not silly, its basic reasoning. If new standards for gear/character power/resources are put in the game, and quests and groups are expecting/needing that, it is highly detrimental. so +3 to hit, +3 to damage and all the other extremely powerful buffs you get from ships, dont increase the overall expectation of power from toons? your high!

Note: lev 70 ship here. people should be compelled to be guilded for nothing else than what it was before ships + maybe some conveniences. Making guilded characters more powerful narrows the gameplay options. fuels a power creep, is an annoyance to maintain and overall takes away from what (IMO) DDO should be, which is more gritty d&d and less UBAR l33t bullpucky

/signed

Not to argue but call it what you want but it is not basic reasoning its presumption at best especially since quest are hardly "needing that" as you state. And again I fail to see how it detracts from the gaming experience unless you let it bother you that you don't have what someone else does. Again not referring to you specifically but those like the OP who feel slighted.

[EustaceTrevelyan]

I feel yer pain, but since they're the biggest cash cow ever for turbine (buying the gold seal +2 stat/higher xp shrines week in, week out, cha-ching!), don't expect them to go away soon. Also, casuals aren't going to spend as much cash on them, it's the hardcore types that really increase the champagne consumtion round HQ

Really, guild stuff is the killer app for the TP store. It's like crack. Once you have all those buffs, they're hard to give up.

[SardaofChaos]

You'll have to explain to me why all these completely new players suddenly have access to level 100 guilds, because I wasn't aware of it.


Take away the ship buffs, you may as well toss the ship. Toss the ship, then what was the use of making all those changes to the way guilds work. Toss guild levels too. And while you're at it, toss guilds. They provide players with an easy way to find competent groups for quests, which is completely OP because back in the day we didn't have no stinking guilds, we had to wander around for hours typing in chat "LF CLR, WIZ, BRB for ADQ run" and even then we weren't guaranteed to get through the very first fight.

[Ungood]

"Back in my day, things sucked! and we liked it!"

Honestly, a topic requesting to make the game suck more? Really?

[fuzzy1guy]

Completely off-topic, mea culpa, but it's made me slightly culture-curious: Is "Hell" really a cuss-word in the USA? It's not blocked by the forum's word filter, which is otherwise at the predictible Tele-tubbie level. And I suppose "heck" is a soccer-momification of "hell", no?

I didnt censor the word hell.. It just came out that way.

Cuz i'm weird. As i suspect most of the rest of you are as well. lol

Altho i do find myself having to go back and change words that preview shows as blocked.. Or you get a page fulla *'s. Pretty tame words too. I mean damm. this is the net. if you've gotten this deep into it you HAVE been exposed to much much MUCH worse.



On topic... Nobody makes you use the buffs. If they bother you that much. DON'T USE THEM. It's a dead simple zero work solution that gives zero chance for turbine to break something. (a good thing)

I don't keep them all running on all my toons.. But some characters want this buff. Some really NEED that buff for this quest. But most times it doesnt matter at all. And it's just how lazy i'm feeling at the moment.

Those buffs were not free either. We paid for them in time, plat, and real money. (real money for turbine. the reason they wont ever go away and you might as well just accept it already.)

[Mortimar]

One problem with ship buffs is that a first time player with his first character can take all the ship buffs and be just about as powerful as a completionist build without buffs and in some cases, dependent upon the type of build, more powerful. I always thought +stats should be pretty sacred. You TR just for 2 build points the first time and 2 build points the second time and none thereafter until you get to completionist. You grind to get a +1 exceptional stat or finally get a minimum level 11 +6 stat item.

What's next? +3 and +4 buffs that last two hours? +8 items at level 9? A +4 supreme stat buff that lasts 10 hours and pauses between quests? Maybe a 30 minute limit would help solve the issue. Also, maybe limit +1 stat buffs to level 4-12 and +2 stat buffs to level 13-20 and also have level limits on resists, etc. Adding +3 stats and other even more powerful buffs would just be a joke and since there are some greater shrines it suggests greater +3 stat shines may be coming. Having lowbie toons buffed to be as powerful as a level 20 unbuffed toon is a farce.