Debuff limit removed
by Adam Holisky 
Dec 3rd 2008 at 6:00PM
Previously you could only have 40 debuffs up on a single mob. That might seem like a lot, but when you got in a raid with 25 other people all putting up their own set of debuffs and dots, etc... things tended to get a little full.Daelo, the Lead Encounter Designer, announced today that the debuff limit has been removed*. This is a subtle yet important change for many raiding guilds.
He notes that the default UI won't normally be able to show all the debuffs, but that's just a bug in the UI. The debuffs are still there and working. We don't have any verifiable information yet as to if custom mods can display an infinite number of debuffs.
It's interesting to note that back in the day there was a limit of 16 debuffs. That was increased to 40 for the Burning Crusade expansion in 2007. And even before that there was a limit of 8. Elizabeth Harper talked about it in an article back in August of 2006.
Oh how the times have changed.
*It should be noted that Daelo said the debuff limit has been "effectively removed." I take this to mean that the number of possible debuffs on a mob is so high that no one can possibly reach it. The way games are built necessitates a limit on all numbers due to restriction on numerical data types in the programming language / computer system. An example of a hard coded limit on a seemingly infinite item is how much gold you can have. Daelo is likely referring to this situation, in that there is some "upper bound" on the number of debuffs dictated by programmatical means. But don't fear, even if the number of debuffs is contained in a byte-sized array, you're still looking at total possible debuff limit of 255 debuffs. More likely the debuff list is kept with a 32 bit word-sized array, in which case the number of possible debuffs would be 2,147,483,647 if the word is signed (which is likely the case given that gold is stored in a signed word), or 4,294,967,295 if the word is unsigned.
Filed under: Patches, News items, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
pielord22 Dec 3rd 2008 6:03PM
Cool
Heenk Dec 3rd 2008 6:05PM
Amazing news. Finally serious raiders won't have to keep this obscure mechanic in mind any more when creating a raid.
FlameFlash Dec 3rd 2008 8:22PM
I _really_ hope that they at least make it so you can see only the debuffs YOU put on the mob once the dubuffs hit that 40 mark. I know some folks (warlocks) have some great addons for timing their debuffs but there are others of us that only toss one or two debuffs and really don't want/need an addon to manage them.
jared.daniels Dec 3rd 2008 6:14PM
wait a minute... I thought buffs and debuffs with the same effect didn't stack anymore. So there will be some effects that won't work due to them being overdone by another effect.... right?
Saelorn Dec 3rd 2008 6:26PM
Some, yes. DoTs always stack, though. Imagine if you're in a 25 raid, and you have 5 affliction warlocks. If each one tries to put up Curse of Agony, Corruption, Siphon Life, Unstable Affliction, Immolate, Haunt (which puts up the extra Shadow Embrace debuff), and drains life, then none of the other characters can cause any status effects whatsoever; fireballs won't burn, warriors won't deep wound, shadow word pain fizzles, stings don't work, etc.
I imagine it would be rather difficult for this change to have any meaning in a warlock-less environment, but don't quote me on that.
Jack Spicer Dec 3rd 2008 6:30PM
It depends on the buff/debuff. Dots are considered debuffs and Hots are considered buffs, both of them will stack though.
jay Dec 4th 2008 4:49AM
Maybe (didn't read all responses, so sorry if someone mentioned this) I believe a mod auther might be able to display as many debuffs as he/she see's fit, one obvious idea would be to add a number somehow on multiple debuffs to show how many are up thus maximizing screen real estate.
Hangk Dec 3rd 2008 6:15PM
As an Affliction warlock who can put up no fewer than eight different debuffs on the same mob at the same time, I heartily approve of this change.
Lamlams Dec 3rd 2008 6:21PM
What happened to WotLK being too easy?
Kanuris Dec 3rd 2008 9:22PM
This change isn't so much making the game easier by design, more fixing bad implementation. The debuff limit part of the difficulty in fights was 100% stupid.
Matt Dec 3rd 2008 6:32PM
"We don't have any verifiable information yet as to if custom mods can display an infinite number of debuffs."
Given that all computer monitors are finite in size (i.e. have a finite number of pixels) I can definitively tell you that there won't be any custom mods that display an infinite number of debuffs.
Presumably what you meant is that we don't know whether there can be custom mods that display all the debuffs on a target.
:)
Adam Holisky Dec 3rd 2008 6:42PM
See... if you wanna get picky... =)
Given a infinite amount of space and an infinite amount of (computer/hardware/physical) resources, a mod could display an infinite amount of debuffs. There need be no restrictions on the set of data which would imply limits.
But... you are correct in a pragmatic sense, I was referring to a mods ability to display any given number of debuffs or "all" debuffs. But... given that a mod author has to deal with a pratical upper bound of some 2 million-odd debuffs, they would just write it as being able to display an infinite amount of debuffs.
QED.
Wes Dec 3rd 2008 6:45PM
No, he means a mod that can display an infinite number of debuffs regardless if the fact whether your shabby monitor is capable of actually making them visible on screen.
That limitation would be set by your screen size and resolution, not the mods ability to show infinite debuffs ;)
... Dec 3rd 2008 6:43PM
Well, you don't have to display them all at the same time, i.e. you could scroll between them in some table.
You could also say computers don't have enough memory to store infinite amounts of data, but that would go into quite absurd length.
Matt Dec 3rd 2008 7:10PM
Ok, ok. This is totally off topic now, but here's what I mean. Think about mathematical infinity (I'm thinking specifically of Dedekind's definition, but it doesn't really matter which one you pick), which is defined as follows:
A set B just infinite if and only if there is a proper subset of B, call it C, such that B is equinumerous to C.
A proper subset of a collection is a subset that is not simply identical with the collection (so, e.g., the collection of male WoW players is a proper subset of the collection of WoW players. This means that all male WoW players are WoW players (subset) and that there is at least one WoW player that isn't male (this makes it "proper").)
A set A is equinumerous to a set B just in case there is a bijection from A to B. This means that there is a function that takes each member of A and maps it to a unique member of B such that each member of B has exactly one member of A mapped to it. Such a function is sometimes called "1 to 1" which is perhaps easier to think about.
We can see from this that even extremely large numbers (say, 2,000,000) are still finite. To see this, imagine trying to map each number up to 2,000,000 bijectively onto each number up to 1,999,999. It can't be done. You'd have to either map one number to two different numbers (in which case you wouldn't have a function) or leave one out (in which case you wouldn't have a bijection). The same reasoning works for any large finite number including, say, the number of particles in the known universe.
So why is this at all relevant? Suppose there was a way for a mod to display an infinite amount of information. I presume that, to display something, you need at least 1 pixel. So we need an infinite number of pixels. But this is, as we see, a very, very large number. It (1) exceeds the number of particles in the known universe, and (2) even if we had an infinite amount of particles to put together, the assembly would take an infinite amount of time. I think this makes it pretty plausible that we don't have a way to display an infinite amount of information.*
*provided, of course, that each bit of information has to be in a discreet chunk, which in this case it has to be.
Adam Holisky Dec 3rd 2008 7:28PM
=)
Right, and I agree 100% with you except for two points.
First, any programmer of a mod that can display a very large number of debuffs will create the mod in a way that allows it to display an infinite number of debuffs. Simple list/set algorithms. Well I should say any programmer worth his beans, and all the major mods have brilliant people working behind them, so it's not a problem.
Secondly, there is a way to display infinite amount of data, conceptually at least. And even programmatically there are data type definitions to convey the concept to the computers, thus allowing, at least theoretically, an infinite amount of debuffs to be applied. However I highly doubt this is the case with WoW. Not because the people working are not smart enough or have enough numerical theory under their belts to tackle it, but just because the existence of infinite amounts of anything in a game is preposterous.
Wouldn't it look funny to see a mod with inf(Curse of Doom) up. That'd win.
Off topic is good. Been a while since I was in my theoretical computer science course though. ;)
Hoggersbud Dec 4th 2008 5:44PM
So if you had an infinite about of mobs, with an infinite about of debuffs, would they eventually spell out in binary code, the collected works of William Shakespeare?
Matrim Dec 3rd 2008 6:45PM
You know, I remember a time when the debuff limit was a quite smaller number.
Back when MC was the place to be.
Lets not make wow any harder than it has to be, amirite?
Matrim Dec 3rd 2008 7:00PM
Random unrelated sidenote: Who at Blizz do I have to screw to get the ethereal av for the forums?
FenSat Dec 4th 2008 9:53AM
This has NOTHING to do with making WoW easier or harder and everything to do with not making the debuff limit a deciding factor in raid composition. DPS classes that concentrate on dotting (hello, affliction locks!) had a legimate concern, and it has now been addressed. Thanks, Blizzard!
(Of course, if one plays a non-dotting DPS class who was hoping the debuff limit would mean fewer slots for dotting DPS classes and, thus, more opportunities for oneself to get an invite to a raid over them, then one might be opposed to this change. Sorry about that...)