It's All About Them Buffs

Friday! Here we are the week is coming to the close and we are off wondering again what the weekend has in store for us. While you are trying to decide on this why not check out this week's Reader Post coming to you from Zendrak who has some thoughts on community buffs coming back to Diablo III. So sit back and have a read.

I miss the Community Buffs we occasionally got. I know other people do as well (I am sure there are some that will post here saying they don't... cant make everyone happy /shrug)

I remember a while back a Blue posted that they stopped doing the Community Buffs because they felt like it forced people to play during certain time periods and they didn't want to promote that type of 'forced' play...

Well, I have a solution, on whatever weekend that the buff is to be released have it sent out as an item... like a potion that everyone gets in their mailbox. As long as they pick up the item from the mailbox During the weekend they can Use the item to get the buff at any time. To keep people from just saving them up and using several at once set an expiration on the actual item as well, maybe a month or two.

Basically if Blizzard wanted to do a buff this upcoming Holiday Weekend, say Double GRift Shards, they would mail out an item to everyone. The item would be in your mailbox Only during the weekend and expire at the end of the weekend. So as long as you picked it up During the weekend you can wait and use it at anytime during a set period. Once you use it your account would Have the buff for the set number of days (or logged in time) the buff is supposed to last.

If it was done this way we could Have buffs every couple of months and no one would feel Forced to play, they could just wait to use it until they had a free couple of days.

So many buff possibilities I wouldn't mind seeing...
Double Greater Rift Keys...
Double Goblins...
Double Bounties....
Double Blood Shards....
Double Exp...
Double Legendary Drops...
The buff that added the Herald to the Queen (cow goblin) into the game...
How about a buff that makes the Rifts you open into something really special?

If they added this mechanic and used it we could have all kinds of Community Buffs that do many fun and creative things and they could make it easy to just use it at your convenience. And not all the buffs would have to be a "Double" buff or something that makes us more powerful / gives us loot. Just make them fun and creative!

So well what are your thoughts? I guess bonus weekends are a great thing to talk about coming into the weekend.

Ask Gauss

Sunday is upon us and on Sunday's it is the weekly custom to answer the questions I have got throughout the week. No this is not an excuse to ignore everyone through the week and save answering my mail for one day. This although a great idea would just add to more mail about me not answering mail. So if some people are still unsure at how to send in their questions it is afterall pretty simple. Click the link on the top of the page or send an email to gaussafication@gmail.com. So with all of that out of the way time for this week's questions.

So will you be doing FTH again?

Of course, I will. This issue at the current moment is that the leader have as much health and if not more than a 25 man raid boss. This is not impossible to kill, but just means the groups themselves have to be composed of more higher end players. Also with the cities now being major hubs it means that there will also be much more defence, which involves much more planning. So this doesn't mean they won't be done it just means that I need to make sure I have a sound group in order for it to be completed. Basically I am giving the community a chance to gear up before I put them to the test. So keep waiting maybe 1-2 more weeks before we make Saturday and Sunday afternoons again full of fun.

What do you think of Blizzard's choice to increase the luck of the draw buff?

Well I am very conflicted actually. I understand that pugs have much less coordination then an organized group. This is obvious and having a buff to make up for this makes sense, but while increasing a buff can help you make up for lack of coordination it can also make you ignore tatics and make content too easy, which was obviously the case in Wrath. This could make people not "trained" well enough for raids and going into raids with gear where they should have learned to do this and that which they didn't because they were only able to complete the instance correctly because of a 15% buff. Maybe I am just looking on the bad side of things, but I just always cringe when buffs are increased when content wasn't able to be done at the previous buff level then instantly completed when it is increased.

Best raid death so far?

The Elevator...

So that is it for this week. As always your question can not be answered if you don't actually ask it. I know it is a hard concept. Next week's Reader Post is going to be about elevator deaths. Send them in, as always but Thursday night to have a chance to be a part of it. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!