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Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Ashes of Creation Mana Management, what is your opinion?
JamesSunderland
Member
A recent comment exchange with @Azherae in another thread, inspired me to create this discussion as i feel it might be very important for Ashes gameplay as a whole.
Lineage 2, one of the games AoC draws alot of inspirations from, had one of the harshest Mana Management systems in any MMORPG i've ever played, where there were no mana potions, were mana costs were steep and there was 2 essential classes almost completely dedicated to the management of mana of their party and that every 9man-party would wan't atleast 1 of them,
then there is a clue we got by considering Alpha 1 mages had a specific mana recharging skill.
Those pieces of informations makes me believe Mages will not only be a DPS class but will also play the role of the "Party Mana Manager" in Ashes and that Ashes will have an "harder than average Mana Management system.
With all that in mind, in this thread i would like to know people's opinions and experiences in other games and their expectations for Ashes regarding this topic.
Lineage 2, one of the games AoC draws alot of inspirations from, had one of the harshest Mana Management systems in any MMORPG i've ever played, where there were no mana potions, were mana costs were steep and there was 2 essential classes almost completely dedicated to the management of mana of their party and that every 9man-party would wan't atleast 1 of them,
then there is a clue we got by considering Alpha 1 mages had a specific mana recharging skill.
Those pieces of informations makes me believe Mages will not only be a DPS class but will also play the role of the "Party Mana Manager" in Ashes and that Ashes will have an "harder than average Mana Management system.
With all that in mind, in this thread i would like to know people's opinions and experiences in other games and their expectations for Ashes regarding this topic.
Aren't we all sinners?
3
Comments
I like having the option to use Mana Potions but only as an emergency due to an error (prohibitive cost and longish cooldown).
I like when classes have to think about 'when to activate abilities to restore theirs for maximum effectiveness.
I don't like when one or two classes are 'expected' to restore mana to others and content ends up balanced around that because I feel the lack of those classes leads to 'less gameplay' and the stigma around the situations that arise leads to multi-boxing and other negative outcomes, particularly since many support players seem to prefer their classes to be easier mechanically.
In this age of high-level botting, I would want the mana restoration to be split between multiple classes, or less required overall (as a function of how much mana is generally restored or available compared to the totals that a group has when in peak condition before a battle).
I also think this would be better for balance in multiple situations.
Overall, challenging mana management is a positive for me.
No experience in Linage and can only speak from EQ.
You had no mana pots in EQ. If you had no water in your inventory, you lose out on the very slow mana regen passive.
Wizards in EQ were limited to like 4-5 spells before being Out of mana for ~10min.
The only class that can help assist with mana were Enchanter casting Clarity.
I like slow pace, I like hardship, I like management. Fuck pots.
Sometimes we would have small parties which led to longer fights. During that, the cleric would be running out of mana, and I spec'ed into gift of the magi in order to give the cleric enough mana to make sure we didn't wipe. I enjoyed that gameplay immensely, I was managing party member's mana while also trying to max my dps. It felt great to give a cleric more mana in order to get a heal off just in time.
Mana pots are fine, but please keep gift of the magi as the main mana restoration. I would love to have that gameplay again.
I agree with this. Im fine with the social aspects of relying on other players to do their parts in order to optimize your team composition to maximize your overall efficiency and effectiveness- but I don't want to rely on teammates to be able to do my part and actually be able to play the game. Assuming mana is essential for performing your role, I am all for an added gameplay layer with that management aspect, I just want to have control over managing it, rather than relying on someone else.
I definitely don't want the combat to turn into potion spam, where whoever brought the most potions wins. I am fine if potions are usable, since it can reward preparation, inventory management, and theory crafting builds if items have different effects- but they should should have a risk associated with using them during battle so that the combat skill is priority over item usage, and the effectiveness of potions should only provide a slight forgivenss, rather than always changing the tide of the entire battle.
I never even played an enchanter in EQ until a fairly recent TLP (fresh start) server, and I loved it. It was so fun to just run around newby areas and buff everyone I saw, knowing it would make a real impact on their play time for the next 30 minutes.
In response to azherae, I actually think something along the lines of EQs enchanter could address your concerns as well. Enchanters in that game were about as pure a support class as you could imagine. They had some amazing buffs that were a huge benefit to the group, but they were also the best CC class in the game, something which took a great deal of skill, because your ability to lock down adds on a bad pull was often the difference between a successful grinding session and everyone dying. However, they had very limited offensive power on their own, and needed a group to succeed.
EQ players will point out that chanters eventually became the best soloers ever with charm, and while that was a ton of fun, it probably wasnt the most balanced thing ever, and shouldn't be repeated in this game. But their original core identity of support and CC is a really neat idea that I think could add a lot to any game.
In a group xp setting, good mages will optimize in order to put out steady damage, while keeping a reserve of mana in case things get dicey, and then their ability to go all out and burn down a few mobs can save the group.
This concept only works if mana regen isn't too fast. If sitting down for 10 seconds allows for full mana regen, then you cant have mages being higher burst dps, because there is no trade off. Mana management has to be a factor, or else mages are just the best and melees are pointless.
I played a healer in L2 and really had fun managing mana. I would encourage AoC to emulate the L2 mana management needs. Mana, for ALL class and subclass combinations, should be a constraint, just like hit points are a constraint. Those who are smart enough to manage constraints ought to have the advantage over those who cannot.
Nothing is ever easy.
That's a very close description of how the Melee Vs Mage DPS worked in Lineage 2, basically mages outclassing melees DPS in short periods but being restricted by the limitations of mana and melees maintaining consistent DPS without consuming huge amounts of mana like mages, Full passive mana regeneration from 0 even when sitting down would usually take around ~4 minutes(depending on class, gear and level).
Aren't we all sinners?
People forget that in EverQuest, the Trinity was not tank, healer and dps. It was warrior, cleric and enchanter. Specifically. Paladins and shadow knights could tank, but warriors were preferred. Shamans and druids could heal, but cleric were better at it. Bards could maybe help with mana (not sure, I don't remember), but enchanters were kings there. Considering I'm not fond of having the tank archetype being essential for groups, imagine my position of also having to rely on a mana manager class. Still in EQ, a friend of mine was player a wizard. His group disbanded because "they didn't work out", and he saw they had reformed soon after replacing him for an enchanter. Yeah, thumbs up for specialized class considered essential, they really makes other classes feel secondary and barely wanted.
I can't believe people really want to spend 10 minutes sitting down to regain mana. Nothing's more fun than not playing the game when you play the game. Right? Sheesh.
I mean everyone has control over their mana pool and has their base mana regen, so you do have control over managing it, the "Party Mana Manager" job is to possible reduce your mana limitations by provinding you with more of it to work with and improving your "tanking, healing and dpsing" further.
Aren't we all sinners?
So it would be like a collective meditation for a really fast mana regen
The reason enchanters were so OP in everquest was not because of their mana regen buff, it was because of Charm. Enchanters could take control of a mob and use it as their pet. Mobs in EQ were pretty much always better dps than any player, so having an enchanter in group was always preferred. As fun as that was, it was not balanced at all and it's not something I want AoC to replicate, at least not without heavily balancing it.
I think something like an out of combat rest timer could help bridge the gap between relevant mana management and excessive downtime. EQ eventually added a system where if you stayed out of combat for a while (30 seconds for basic xp mobs, 5 minutes for raid zones) then you would get increased mana and hp regen and be able to top off in about 2 minutes of sitting. I liked this compromise, because there was still an incentive to be efficient, so that you didnt need to frequently take short breaks, but it wasn't overly punishing for groups or individuals who did need to.
The problem is that it would have to be designed around and balanced, its not just a bonus optional thing- which would make each individual player's management less important, because it would be more optimal to have a dedicated "party mana manager"- therefore you would have to rely on that person, should the challenge require it. Compared to that not being a thing and designing around each individual's ability to manage their own mana.
I would rather the team compositions focus on requiring each person to do their own job, rather than relying on other's to be able to do your job.
Agreed, but the issue with this is, games that don't stick to EXTREMELY rigid trinity setups will often have backup healers, different mitigation options, or different target options. They do 'more things' still, just differently.
It's equally frustrating to be unable to find a healer if you just want to run 'basic content', but the game arguably can, by your choice, become MORE interesting if you can't find one (again, in a game where Trinity is not SUPER strongly enforced).
The thing about Mana restoration abilities is that unlike healing or DPS or even buffs, you can't just 'go around giving these to everyone' in the balance whiteboard the same way, so it is often very limited, and then, such is any other class when you can't find one.
There's also a subtler problem in SOME games.
Good Healers/Refreshers can be selective AND get boosted up quite fast exp wise. You don't 'get to keep them'. They log in some weekend with the goal of getting 10 levels in one day, and whoosh, they're gone. They want to play in a way that's suboptimal to your group? Tell them no, sure, then wait around for the next. Don't 'manage to prove yourself' to them even if you do keep up with them in exp? Can't be bothered with you.
There is a reason this is ALWAYS a problem.
Now apply this to 'mediocre Refreshers', because in most games, they don't have to be very good if the Refresh is strong enough and limited to them. The good ones REALLY aren't going to 'bother with you'.
This is my argument for 'Mana management good, focusing it on one Archetype bad'. Making a single class a COMMODITY for other people that they have to compete for is slightly different than 'Hey that DD was really good we should party with her again'.
EDIT: Clarification of contradiction, you can't give STRONG effective Mana Restoration to everyone, especially if it stacks, you create a very different game at that point and Trinity stuff breaks down altogether sometimes.
I am really impressed with the foresight shown in the Mana Restoration options already in Alpha-1 and I hope they don't change.
Having Castigation do that is genius. The themes I see around Mage are also great. If they make the Augment Schools similar to what I expect them to, it'll probably be amazing to see all of the synergies people come up with, though I'd expect to just see everyone going 'Oracle Plz' for healers at that point, for the same reason.
Ofc this is just me speculating a LOT based on my own expectations, but from the code side, reusing what they already made in different ways is safe AND good design, so I feel it's heavily weighted toward that outcome.
Sorry that was a bad way of explaining what I meant. You are 100% right in that example you gave, it is same thing in terms of the group jobs, and I am okay with that- I meant something else and I didn't take enough time to properly communicate my thought.
I am fine with relying on others to get the job done as I said originally- My point was in regards to not having your "gameplay" hindered and reliant on someone else, which (originally pointed out by azherae) I was trying to say is usually tied to the mana system.
So I moreso meant that "I would rather the team compositions focus on how good each person is at doing their own job (even if that means helping you do yours), rather than relying on other people to be able to actually "play the game" as you try to do your job (such as not being able to perform actions and make decisions due to a lack of mana that your teammate isnt managing properly).
That would be different from your healing example, because you can still play regardless of what amount of health you are at until you are dead, wheras a lack of mana can prevent you from doing anything so i would rather each individual be responsible for the management of their own mana.
Hopefully that makes more sense when I put it that way.
It's oversimplistic to say 'when your HP ends you die'.
Obviously it is true that when your HP falls you are no longer playing the game. But this is about planning, and choices, right?
The Mana Restorer has to choose whose mana to restore, or it's not really 'management'. The Healer similarly chooses who to heal, but the difference between these two is simply that if the Healer 'chooses not to heal you', things change VERY fast, but many classes would have a way to mitigate this themselves that, again, leads to MORE interesting things (such as all the drama related to complaining about the healer, but more reasonably, defensive abilities, someone else noticing and pulling hate, etc).
When your Mana Restorer goes afk or drops connection randomly, now, IF the game is designed to 'need' this person for the content you are currently doing for that function, you just do LESS things in most games. You 'consciously choose to play less of the game' if you want to live. In a healing situation this is very short term and an ally can step up and do something about it, even if that something is just 'go all out so that you aren't taking more damage'.
What does an ally do to resolve your situation when you are out of mana and 'can't apply abilities anymore', on a non-Tank?
But in those situations the party gameplay went from a "mage party" to a "benny hill party", where the remaining members would just run around kiting the mobs until the mages regened up at least a bit of mana to finish them off. If they had lost their hp - the remaining members would either have to run away completely or just die too.
Majority of parties rarely had those kinds of situations because they knew how to manage their resources, but my oversimplifications just addressed the core premise of "any hp amount lets you play, but not any mp amount does".
I've seen waaaay more situations where a party didn't attack some target because they were low on hp than situations where they didn't attack because they were low on mana. Now that could've been due to L2's design, or maybe just its players' mentality and logic, but those are the exact reasons why Ace's comment didn't make as much sense to me as it seems to make to you.
Same principle as always.
I don't see it as NECESSARY to make it less fun in this way. The 'Benny Hill party' isn't a requirement for good gameplay to me, not even as a tradeoff.
For the DPS it's an adaptation. For the mages it's 'not playing currently', which is fine with me as well, I'm used to 'downtimes'. I prefer them to be 'have to wait for mob respawn' rather than 'have to wait for MP', and the thing is, this is ALSO Intrepid's last known stance, explicitly. I can find the stream where they discuss it.
They don't want players to GENERALLY need to rest up, which to me implies a hope of design that puts responsibility entirely on 'target selection'.
If that isn't how this works we're gonna get 'Manaburns' and I don't want that again. Frontloaded Mage damage (or any frontloaded huge damage classes really) are the bane of Trinity MMOs.
"Players receive skill points as they level. These can be used to level up skills (increase their rank) within their active, passive or combat/weapon skill trees. You can learn more about skill points here, on the wiki! There are no plans for players to use their skill points for Augments. That's a seperate system, and you can learn more about what we've shared regarding Augments here." - A Vaknar answer to a question here.
This is much more in line with my design expectation for many reasons I won't get into, and if you want I can tie it back to 'why this affects mana management' but the short version is related to 'how we respec' and 'what players are able to consider important/reasonable to ask of other players'.
So this 'change' makes me more 'confident' because from the design perspective, I could not see a good reason why Augments would require skill point requirements, only level requirements for some. And that's what we see now.
Having free augments of specific types allows for MUCH greater build flexibility and also allows them to make more complex combat types while pushing specialization into gearing and playstyle a bit more. They could still make individual skills Augments very granular (my posts on this matter aren't actually trying to suggest 'hey make these things all similar regardless of skill') but being able to Augment skills freely would allow for mana management options to the player that don't force metas as hard.
I agree that you can have those situations- thats why I clarified that "usually" your gameplay can be impeded by lack of mana- but it depends on how the combat is designed. Regardless, even if you can still "act" with badly managed mana, you still have much more limited options, otherwise mana shouldn't even be a thing if it doesn't affect your options. So, you have "more" gameplay with more mana, so thats kind of my thought process for wanting to have control over its management, rather than hoping someone else does it right so that way I have the most options available to me as often as possible.
And when you put some potential augments school of "lets you restore some mana on use" against a design point of "almost every class has some form of mana burn" - the players would be pushed towards that kind of school, rather than some school that just gives them a higher CC chance or some elemental dmg or whatever else.
And to add to this, though I don't think NiKr is the type to make this specific counterpoint so I'm moreso pre-empting ... certain other individuals...
Having LIMITED mana is gameplay because you are 'thinking and choosing'. Having INFINITE mana is not gameplay sometimes because you are rotating or as Arya likes to say 'bot aspirant'. Having ZERO mana is not gameplay because again, you're not choosing (it counts as gameplay if you chose to put yourself there and are now dealing with the consequences).
To me that is what 'Mana management' means. The closer you are to either Zero OR Infinity in game design, the less harsh I consider the system to be, even if that 'infinity' is the result of someone else's actions.
And while Azherae is correct that a lot of games provide you with some ways of circumventing the mob's attacks, so your value of 30% HP goes way up, I'd imagine that mana's value is higher than HP's by default. I could be wrong in that assumption though and every ability use reduces your mana by ~20%, but then I'd personally highly dislike that design.