So if you guys are re-writing the buff system, why is there a limit on the amount of stats that can go into a buff? Why not remove that limit in the re-write so you don't have to do things like this?
We rewrote the Buff system not the ability system as a whole which is where the limitation lies. This limitation normally isn't that big of a deal and it is somewhat a good one as it prevents designers from making one ability do way to much and causing other issues.
I feel like this is a story as old as time, and one we have been forced to digest for the last few years. I am not against making things easier for the developers at all but I expected that these investments into the future of vanguard by changing base systems to have yielded bigger returns down the road. We had the system of clickies redone, part of it was supposed to fix lag the other part was supposed to give developers a narrower line on what we could and couldn't do at any moment. Mission accomplished? Maybe, but I didn't see any change in the lag due to it and there still isn't a single clicky buff created for my class that I could use in a raid situation effectively. (over a year later.) We had the network code changed. This didn't seem to change much overall, maybe a slight improvement but there is still major major lag issues that occur to this day. We had run speed values changed in the way they stack and apply, then they were fixed and refixed again. For what real purpose I still can't determine. Now apparently CoW is being held hostage by this BBO system. A system ,which given past expereience, will likely not arrive to the live server fully functional and may take at least 1 or 2 hotfixes to get right. That is fine and all but when it delays content because the devs want to fix more core systems pardon me while I take a skeptical stance on the effectiveness of said changes towards future content based on the past record of systems that have been changed. If one of the devs could take the time to explain how and why this will make things easier in the future it would appreciated. Because it seems to me by delving into this whole system the devs have grasped a pretty good understanding of what buffs stacked and used to stack by creating this new BBO. Are you planning on creating class buffs in the near future that this will somehow make it easier for? Is this relating to future changes in the stat caps? Or is it just to make it more clear to inexperienced players which buffs will and won't stack?
The network underlay was a tool implemented to locate the issues causing the lag, not straight out alleviate it. It is working also. The clickies.. who knows. That was another administration. Run speed was changed from an unrestricted logarithmic gain, to a system where increases can be controlled. The changes are for the good of the game. As much as it may not be apparent up front, they really are a major benefit in the end. For people complaining and saying they are taking a harder/more complicated route... unless you've looked at the code, you're judging the book by it's cover.
The network code was changed in order to find what was causing lag and it's working, lag is much better now, certainly some encounters are still bugged as hell but the team has now the tools to find what's causing that lag. The change in the clickies... it was Silius's fault, i think that it could have been handled better but in some way is better for the game as it prevents players from exploiting multiple clickies in order to gain huge amounts of power. The run speed change... it was necessary given how it worked internally, it could have been done better, SOE should have used the test server for the change and they would have found how people felt about it before it went live. In the end it has turned to be just right but it has caused some unnecessary pain... that's why the BBO change is being done in the test server first and that's why we are discussing this in test server thread instead of discussing it on the general discussion board. Finally about why making things easier for a developer is good… That’s also easy to explain, the easier the things are for the developers the faster they will be able to add new content because they won’t have to waste as much time as they used to in things like balance, ability stacking and things like that. They will be able to design an item and they will know that the item will work as intended, they will be able to know how a new buff will affect a raid force so they will be able to add new buffs as a raid reward... Yes, this will delay CoW but once they have finished with the changes the team will be able to create new areas faster than before so in the future we will get more content that we would have done otherwise. In the long term the game will be better because they did all these changes, it will mean that we get less content in the short term but in the end it will be worthwhile.
Things in the back end have needed to be dealt with for years, since beta...so I am glad we are seeing such good work going into resolving a lot of issues or in creating/implementing tools that can assist with finding the issues. CoW will no doubt be put on hold for quite some time unless it has already been populated and had it's itemisation completed. I am not sure how far along it is so I can't comment, only the Devs know that. I am taking a step back and giving the Devs room because I know there is only Wigin, TLock and Queck left to work on our game, so I wish them the best of luck and I hope they are given some new team members to help them out, for their sake and ours. I don't like to be critical but I only usually post when I feel the need to speak up when I see a potential issues resulting in a negative effect on a class or the balance or the game as a whole. @ Wigin and TLock I understand the system needs to change to make it easier for you to balance us but what I do not get is why some of the changes need to be so drastic, some of the increases or removal of buffs from classes is a pretty substantial gain/loss to their previous form. I am glad the Shaman patron buffs are being put back, thank you! This would of been a huge unnecessary nerf to the class.
I truly want to believe that this is going to be the best thing for the game moving forward, I just don't really think I am there yet based on past experience. I just don't want to see it turn out like F2P where we had to wait an extra 6-8 months for content because of it. Not saying it will, just that there is a past history of delays. I don't know if it is possible to run a copy cycle sometime this week but I need the newer version of my character over there so I can try to see the differences in the BBO system to what we have today. I understand there was some kind of bug that caused stats to stack incorrectly on test, has this been resolved recently? If not I can try to compare the stats off live and then off test, it is just unfortunate that you can't be logged into both at the same time to my knowledge.
Hopefully not completely back to normal, because right now they don't work quite right. I don't know if this has come up or not, but if you are a shaman out of group and are buffing said group, a wolf shaman casts spirits bountiful blessing and it apply's spirits bountiful blessing plus all the patron buffs to that group. BUT if you are out of group with a Bear or a Bird shaman it will only apply Spirits Bountiful Blessing and ignore all the patron buffs, forcing you to go back and apply the patron buffs manually. I would be nice if casting the lvl 55 all in one would cast all the patron buffs too as the wolf shaman version does, and i believe that it is in the spell description too that it is supposed to apply all the patron buffs.
Yes I agree and I have even posted a couple of threads about it but it still hasn't been fixed, others have also raised the issue. I am hoping with the buff revamp this will be fixed finally. I was referring to the way buffs were cast, not the issue with stacking, as that is a separate issue.
Just an aside, might be out of place but it maybe should be looked at same time. Can we have the maintained buff bar now used for static buffs from items and player abilities? I log into a screen nearly half way from the top to the bottom of my screen with buffs just from gear and my character. From Blessing of Dawn to bag buffs, to my Griffon armor bonus effect, it takes up a hug space on the list where player cast buffs will show. Having them moved off, to a buff bar of their own makes sense, I play VG with an unbelievable amount of screen real estate and I wish they were seperate, can't imagine what its like for those with normal screen space.
Most of us use /uiwinscale for our buff bars, especially during raids. I just wish that scale would stick. Though some people use 3rd party UI's that keep those buffs small.
A quick update on the code things here: We've been able to find several bugs in the new BBO system and are addressing them. One of which causes a crash when chunking. However, right now we're implementing the performance upgrades, which we're testing internally at the moment. Rather than fixing these bugs in the main branch of code as well as the Test server branch of code, we're going to wait until the performance improvements are ready to go to the test server before fixing any of the oustanding code bugs with the BBO system. So the next big update to the test server will be bugfixes for BBO and the performance upgrades. It's still a ways off, but the team will post here when that update is ready for testing.
Sounds like the right order and way to handle it. Looking very much forward to these performance upgrades hitting live.
I guess saying the lag is "much" better now is a relative term. It is good they can find and fix lag problems like what happened at arena master, but there is still a lot of work to be done on encounters that have been known to be laggy for ages. I guess you could point the finger at Silius for the changes behind the clickies but regardless of that, Wigin was the one responsible for making the changes to it, he could have had it undone at anytime after Silius' reign if the team had thought it was a mistake. I don't see it as being just Silius, Wigin and the others complained a lot about balance issues with them. Reading more about the run speed, this change seems to make more sense than I initially thought. We could look at other decisions that many would consider a giant waste of time like revamping ToD, Veskals and Lomshir, wiping out starting areas, but those weren't pertaining to core systems so I left those out. It is good to see you can answer my question posed to the devs. I wasn't against making things easier for developers or questioning why it would be a good idea to make things easier for them. I just wanted to know how it will help in the future, outside of the making it easier to understand for new players. I want them to be able to create a new item and know it will work as intended but I don't understand how a BBO system will make that possible. I want what is best for the future of the game too, I guess the problem is that my views of it aren't the same as the development team for the most part. That doesn't make me you or them wrong, it's just our own opinions.
Right now buffs are not stacking properly, some EEs do, but others don’t, some buffs stack with others while others don’t… there is not a clear rule about what stacks and what doesn’t. A dev may design a buff or an item, expect it to stack and then find that for most players that buff is not working as intended, therefore the dev would be forced to waste time finding why is not stacking and fixing the problem whereas with the combination of BBO and always stacking EEs there will be no need to fix items or buffs for that reason. With this change the dev team knows without a shadow of a doubt how is a buff going to interact with the rest of buffs and EEs: they could add a +10% damage buff and they will know that it will increase damage a 10%, in the past that effect may not have worked as intended because that effect wasn't stacking with an EE or a buff from another class. Developers will be able to forget about stacking everything that it’s not part of the BBO system will stack so it will be easier for them to know how that particular item or buff will affect a raid force.
