Game Mechanics: Until early 2000, buffs on pets (and NPCs) lasted 3x longer than on PCs

[Dolalin]

Corroboration from the newsgroups:

1/4/01

Sean Kennedy wrote:
>
>
> Wasn't there a change in one of the patches to pet buffing to make
> the buffs wear off faster? I thought it was to reduce the incidence of
> this sort of thing (charm/buff/gate).

No, the change was because buffs on pets were using the NPC duration code. The
idea was that buffs on pure NPCs would last a long, long time, so that you
wouldn't have to listen to the constant racket as magic-user NPCs replaced all
their buffs all the time. Pets were using the same code, and buffs like Burnout
were lasting for a long time. Verant changed this, because pets were "supposed"
to lose their buffs at the same rate as their player. Now buffs last just as
long for pets as they do for players, not less.

Marc Fuller

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....k/SNuE9xM-rh0J