Buff/Debuff Tooltip Clarification

[Ramasee]

Now that RoR has client control and we can change tooltips, abilities that provide buffs/debuffs that do not stack should have their tooltips adjusted. For example, knight strength aura, warrior priest defensive-target, strength buff, and strength pots do not stack. So we could change the tooltips to be something like:

Press the Attack! -- You order your groupmates to strike fiercely, providing Might increasing strength by X to all groupmates within 100ft. Enemies within 30ft are affected by Atrophy reducing strength by X.

Sigmar's Fist -- A blessed attack that deals X damage to your target and gives your defensive target Might increasing strength by Y for 20s.

Strength Pot -- Provides Might increasing strength by X.

While abilities that do stack such as marauder's ferocious assault would keep their tooltips the same just showing a number. This would be similar with debuffs, for instance the Atrophy I listed above in knight aura.

This would clarify to lesser-informed players what is supposed to stack and what isn't. Also should reduce questions, threads, and possible bug reports placed about the stacking of effects.

[Azarael]

Your suggestion is good, but recall that buffs and debuffs have entirely different types. In the case where an Enchantment Might, a Blessing Might and a Buff Might were active, the problem would remain.

[Ramasee]

I'm not advocating for a consolidation of buffs/debuffs. Just a tooltip change on the casted ability/tactic/morale. The enchantment might, blessing might, and buff might would still work the same as it does now. Each shows up on the target(s) and only the highest one currently active counts.

[sullemunk]

What I would like (but I know it's not possible, but a man can dream) is to have source of the buff/debuff (ie the caster of said buff/debuff) .

[Azarael]

Have you considered something like D&D uses?

For example, when reference is made to a +2 circumstance bonus, or a +2 magic bonus. In this case, tooltips would read something like "Deals x damage and grants a +120 ability bonus to Strength for y seconds."

[Ramasee]

As someone who plays DnD every week, I like that. Anything that clarifies things that stack versus not for the average player.

edit: combined with a loading screen tip for even more clarification *nudges wargrminir*

[Azarael]

The only problem I can foresee is that we're experiencing a technical issue where if the ability description file is above a certain size, it won't pack into the archive and crashes the tool. We've hit that limit quite recently and had to remove some alpha/beta descriptions from that file.

[Ramasee]

Removing superfluous text from every tooltip might help with that.

Press the Attack can just say. +120 ability bonus to strength for all groupmates within 100ft. -120 ability bonus to strength to enemies with 30.

Sigmar' s Fist -- Deals X damage. Defensive target: +120 ability bonus to strength for 20s.

Nature's Blade has a huge tooltip so reduce it to: Your melee hits have a 25% chance to randomly steal 75 ability bonus of a stat from enemies with 30ft giving it to groupmates within 100ft.

Doing this to all abilities, just the barebones no fluff could be a fair workaround until you resolve the underlying issue of the crash.