Buff Limit
A limiting system which restricts the total number or total power of duration-based buffs that can be applied to a single character. This is the recipient version of concentration and the buff version of attunement
Aside from practical considerations (memory/cpu drain, UI space limits, etc.), there are several reasons to implement some kind of buff limit:
- To stop an individual character (and by extension, the entire raid) from receiving every possible buff in the game, resulting in completely overpowered characters.
- To stop low-level characters from receiving (too many) high-level buffs, making them even more broken for their level-appropriate opponents.
Examples (and non-examples)
- Single-player games tend to omit buff limits. There are several possible reasons:
- The party is composed of a small number of characters (compared to, say, an MMO), making it impossible to get every buff.
- Buffs only last for the current combat, requiring the player to expend time to recast them in the next battle.
- Buffs do last for a significant amount of time, and can be precast, but the game designers anticipate this and tune encounters assuming the party is at least somewhat buffed.
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Original Everquest had no explicit buff limit, but did have a per-character cap on the number of duration-based effects that could be tracked (including buffs, debuffs, HoTs, DoTs, and bard songs), presumably just to keep things from getting too out of control. A detrimental effect would overwrite a beneficial effect if there were no more buff slots available, a beneficial effect would fail to take hold. In addition, low level characters could be buffed to godlike power until minimum level restrictions began appearing on buffs and equipment after several expansions.
- Anarchy Online had a buff limit with a very original in-game justification for the limit. Buffs are presented as programs which run on the character’s CPU. Each program requires a certain amount of memory to run, and the total amount used for all programs can’t exceed the character’s memory capacity. Players could upgrade their memory modules and/or CPU belt in order to increase their amount of memory and thus the buff limit. Low level characters might not have enough memory to run even one high-level program. Debuffs and DoTs are presented as hostile programs forced to run on the target’s CPU, but they didn’t take up and memory - unlike real world computer viruses.