November 14 - Making Buffs Matter
Something that's always bothered me is how buffs and debuffs rarely seem to matter. They're almost always there, but they don't make a noticeable impact on your decision making in combat. A lot of times they don't even matter and are relegated to a single "buffing" class. So how do you make a system where buffing/debuffing matters and impacts your decision making?
Step number one is you make buffs and debuffs less annoying to deal with. The reason they tend not to matter is because most players want to ignore them or forget about them. Players do that because they're usually really obnoxious to deal with. A collection of icons on some corner of the UI that you have to hover over to check on, or read about in a menu somewhere, and are otherwise out of your peripheral. My system does this too, so I needed a way to involve them more in the combat UI. Thus the Target HUD is born:
This lets you see what effects are currently active on your target at all times, making it easier to both have and choose abilities that are dependent on certain buffs and debuffs.
The other problem is information overload. A lot of RPGs will just run wild with buffs and you can end up with a target that has 15 or more buffs and debuffs on them at a time. The more effects there generally are on a target, the less impactful and important each individual buff is, which again lowers the importance of buffs overall. It changes the buff system to that of spinning plates, where the only goal is to maintain uptime on as many as possible, rather than actually making choices about which are important. Also, it makes the buff situation impossible to decipher. Even with a dedicated HUD telling you the active effects, if you put 20 on there nobody is going to read it.
In order to solve the second problem, I limit you to 1 buff and 1 debuff each that you can have active on a target at a time. This has several effects: it clears up the target HUD such that you will only be dealing with 1-2 active effects most of the time, it places a greater importance on which buffs you choose to use, and makes the whole system simpler to understand while expanding tactical depth. Choosing between shielding yourself or increasing your attack becomes a more complicated decision when you can't just do both. Note that this is a per-player restriction, so if you have a Party Of Five then each player can have a buff and debuff on the target, meaning a potential max of 5 buffs and 5 debuffs on a target. I'm alright with this as I think group fights should probably be more complicated, but if it doesn't work out I'll change it. So, we'll see.
If you stalk me on facebooks you've probably seen this, but I've added a drill. I found building underground a bit obnoxious, so I added this to make it easier. It's currently freebuild only, but when used it quickly digs in a cone on front of you. Anything you dig out this way is destroyed, so if you're looking to collect blocks you'll still want to use the hammer.
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