Temporary Buffs

Overview

Tim Cain addresses four interconnected questions from viewer "Future Astrominer" about temporary buffs in RPGs. He emphasizes upfront that this is not a basic design topic — it's a perfect example of how seemingly simple questions have deeply complex, interdependent answers. He spent hours preparing the response because the topics are so interrelated.

Difficulty Settings and Buff Requirements

The Mathematical Model

Tim recommends building a spreadsheet-based combat model:

• Calculate the player's average DPS (damage per second) versus enemy DR (damage resistance)
• From DPS and DR, derive the expected number of rounds a combat will last
• Factor in the player's health (level-dependent) to determine whether the player survives the encounter
• At higher difficulties, player damage decreases while enemy damage and DR increase

Once you have this model, you base your buff values on the gap between what the player can handle at normal difficulty and what the higher difficulty demands. If a player at the expected level would die before killing the enemy on hard mode, that's where buffs become necessary.

Why It's Harder Than It Sounds

Player damage is "spiky" — wizards do nothing for several seconds then deal massive burst damage. Damage output also depends on items and skill levels. Enemy damage resistance might be percentage-based, threshold-based, or blocking-based — and it may vary by damage type. Tim worked with a system designer who was a "spreadsheet master" and calls that collaboration essential for tuning these numbers.

Telegraphing Damage Types to Players

Tim identifies a fundamental design tension: players who already know information find repeated hints patronizing, while players who miss the hints blame the game.

The Tightrope

• Some players need really obvious clues (this is why "yellow paint on ledges" exists in modern games)
• If a player knows fire giants use fire, telling them again feels condescending
• If they miss the clue, they blame level design — Tim shares a personal anecdote about missing a hidden back entrance to a locked room in a game

Tim's Preferred Approach

Make information available but not forced:

• Let players ask NPCs for advice ("Do you have any tips?") rather than having NPCs volunteer it unprompted
• Use environmental storytelling — scorched earth and burned bodies near fire giant territory
• NPCs might say "another party went before you and didn't come back — they weren't prepared enough"

Loot Design Pet Peeve

Tim agrees with the viewer's complaint: fire resistance gear should NOT drop from fire giants. It should drop from frost giants — you need the resistance before the encounter, not after. Getting fire resistance as a reward for already beating fire enemies is backwards design.

Setting Meaningful Buff Values

The "right" buff value depends on a cascade of prior design decisions:

• What is the range of the stat being buffed? A +1 buff means very different things on a 1–10 scale versus 1–100
• Is the buff a flat number or percentage? +10% on a 1–10 range equals +1; on 1–100 it equals +10
• Do buffs stack? Options include: additive stacking, largest-buff-wins, or last-applied-wins
• Does a single buff source give one bonus or multiple? This affects stacking rules further — individual elements might stack independently, or one buff might override another entirely

Tim can't give a universal answer because the right values are entirely dependent on these underlying system choices. He refers viewers to his dedicated videos on skill number ranges and damage number ranges.

Crafting Without the Grind

Tim identifies two distinct forms of crafting grind:

The Collection Grind (Gathering Ingredients)

Options to reduce it:

• Make ingredients common or purchasable (but this ties into game economy design)
• Make ingredients uncommon but tied to exploration — if exploration is a design pillar
• Make collection skill-dependent — you can see harvestable resources but need sufficient skill to gather them, which creates aspirational goals ("I'll come back when I'm better")

The Crafting Grind (Making Items)

Options to manage it:

• Hard stack limits — you can only carry 20 of an ingredient or 3 of a potion
• Skill-dependent carry limits — low alchemy skill means potions keep breaking, so you can only carry 2–3; higher skill lets you carry 4–5
• Recipe gating by skill level — some recipes require minimum crafting skill
• Encumbrance systems — Tim notes he has two videos on encumbrance because "people have strong opinions" and no matter what you decide, some group of players will hate it

Rewarding Crafting

• Grant XP for collecting ingredients
• Grant XP for crafting items
• Use skill-based progression (crafting skill improves through use) — though Tim isn't sure he recommends this for every game

The Hoarding Problem

Tim's high-level summary for all buff-related questions: "Buff hard, buff short, but players gonna hoard."

Like save-scumming, hoarding is a player behavior you can discourage but never eliminate. Stack limits and encumbrance help, but some players will hoard regardless. Accept it and design around it rather than fighting it.

Meta-Lesson: Design Complexity

Tim emphasizes this video as a "perfect example" of how new designers underestimate complexity. Every question about temporary buffs depends on difficulty settings, which depend on damage models, which depend on stat ranges, which depend on whether you use damage types, which depend on your stacking rules, which connect to your economy, which connects to your crafting system. It's all interconnected — and that's what makes game design hard.