Thoughts on rogues, tanks and fighters using mana?

What do you guys think about this? Im really hoping we dont have mana on a rogue or fighter and hope to see resorce management become a real thing down the line, gopefully they touch on this during the rogue showcase 😊

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Iskiab

I thought it was odd too, but when I thought about it more I think it’s great.

I like hybrid builds and stat splits are always an issue. Having one resource pool will help classes like fighter/mage, etc…

nanfoodle

Depends on the class. Its it a Magical Rogue? DAoC I played a Minstrel, was a Mage/Rogue/Bard. Is the Tank a Paladin? Comes down to the lore of the class.

Azherae

No objection here, but I tend to think in abstractions.

A resource is a resource. Easier to balance if it's this way.

Ludullu

I prefer it because it leads to a much deeper mana gameplay and interactions. Giving everyone a special resource to manage (outside of the current way Intrepid is doing that) would just mean either no interconnectedness between the archetypes or would lead to an abhorrent amount of ability bloat.

Special resources are nice in pve games because they enrich your own gameplay and that's the only thing you care about in the game. But in pvx/p games, imo, everyone should be influencing each other's gameplay, so super individualistic design of classes would be detrimental.

Zyllos

I DO NOT like the idea of mana being the "resource" and everyone just uses it.

Every class should have their own resource. Stamina/Combo Points/Mana/ect. You can have influence in PvX/P games by adding skills that effect that unique resource. Lower Stamina regeneration, Mana Drain, Rage, ect. And some classes should have both bars.

Battle Mage (Mage/Fighter) and Spellsword (Fighter/Mage) both will have Rage and Mana. So, each debuff type would affect each class differently because how they use the resource.

But, just forcing everyone to use mana to make it a common resource really limits interactions. Now, anyone that has a debuff for a resource would affect everyone. But with multiple types of stats, now various classes would affect only certain archetype combinations.

Iskiab wrote: »

I thought it was odd too, but when I thought about it more I think it’s great.

I like hybrid builds and stat splits are always an issue. Having one resource pool will help classes like fighter/mage, etc…

No need to worry about stat splits. Stamina is always just a 0/100 resource. Rage is always a 0/100 resource. Mana is the only one that is affected by a stat, Intelligence. Or Spirit if they add some special way to regen mana outside of just straight Mana Regen / s stat.

Ludullu

Zyllos wrote: »

But, just forcing everyone to use mana to make it a common resource really limits interactions. Now, anyone that has a debuff for a resource would affect everyone. But with multiple types of stats, now various classes would affect only certain archetype combinations.

I don't quite get how something that interacts and affects everyone is limiting, while something that only interacts between a small group of archetypes is not limiting.

If I have several abilities that interact with, say, tanks, but for whatever reason tanks fall out of meta and almost no one uses them, then I have completely useless abilities now (or at the very least, they don't have as much impact, if they have a double effect).

Zyllos wrote: »

No need to worry about stat splits. Stamina is always just a 0/100 resource. Rage is always a 0/100 resource.

Which is exactly why they sound boring as a mechanic and would require a ton of additional interactions to come close to mana's potential gameplay. But adding all those interactions would require overcomplication of abilities or overabundance of abilities. Imo both are bad choices.

tautau

I think that every class should have mana and that SOME types of skill usage should require mana, parallel to the lore of the game.

Magical classes would have more mana dependent skills. Physical classes would have less, but would have some. The more powerful the mana-related skill, the more mana it would use.

A mage or a cleric can still hit someone with a club or stab with a knife...physical attacks which would not use mana. But their most useful skills would use mana.

A knight or rogue could acquire useful skills which use mana, but their most useful skills would be physical and not mana dependent.

Mana management adds addition skill to the game and better players who can manage mana well will have an advantage against unskilled players who cannot. I'm totally cool with that.

George_Black

Nobody played WC3 and the original dota?
Nobody played any other mmo, in which MP was the only resource besides HP?
Stamina, rage and other such are poor features if the basic combat elements suck.

Noaani

Zyllos wrote: »

No need to worry about stat splits. Stamina is always just a 0/100 resource. Rage is always a 0/100 resource. Mana is the only one that is affected by a stat, Intelligence. Or Spirit if they add some special way to regen mana outside of just straight Mana Regen / s stat.

I mean, this is patently untrue.

The most popular RPG on PC ever (Skyrim) has stamina as a stat affected resource, and I have played games where mana works as a percentage.

What you are talking about is how those specific terms work in one specific game - not how they always work or have to work.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

I prefer it because it leads to a much deeper mana gameplay and interactions.

This is my thoughts on it as well.

I want to see bards be given mass amounts of mana regeneration abilities (and CC), and have all group and raid top end PvE content last long enough as to make their mana prowess a requirement. Throw some mana damaging abilities around the various DPS classes (literally all via augments, imo), and you could have some fun interactions.

One thing I can see this leading to, that I think could be interesting, is the occasional PvP encounter where one group has a Bard but no healer, the other has a healer but no Bard. It would essentially be a race where one side is damaging HP while the other side is damaging mana.

I could also see it as a viable means of area control if you dont want corruption - maintaining a rival on low mana while you farm an area is probably a more effective way of forcing them to move on than killing them would be. This would likely only be viable if you significantly out gear or out level your rival.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

I could also see it as a viable means of area control if you dont want corruption - maintaining a rival on low mana while you farm an area is probably a more effective way of forcing them to move on than killing them would be. This would likely only be viable if you significantly out gear or out level your rival.

Yeah, mana attacks against greens would have to be discussed and tested extensively. Rn I lean towards treating mana attacks as CCs, mainly because it'd be waaaay too ez to abuse this mechanic to avoid getting corruption while still winning against passive players.

Could maybe treat it the same as hp attacks and make people corrupt if they brought a person to 0 mana, but that'd be a very controversial topic, I'd assume. Azherae's idea for the corruption system would work great here, but I doubt Intrepid would go for it.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

I could also see it as a viable means of area control if you dont want corruption - maintaining a rival on low mana while you farm an area is probably a more effective way of forcing them to move on than killing them would be. This would likely only be viable if you significantly out gear or out level your rival.

Yeah, mana attacks against greens would have to be discussed and tested extensively. Rn I lean towards treating mana attacks as CCs, mainly because it'd be waaaay too ez to abuse this mechanic to avoid getting corruption while still winning against passive players.

Could maybe treat it the same as hp attacks and make people corrupt if they brought a person to 0 mana, but that'd be a very controversial topic, I'd assume. Azherae's idea for the corruption system would work great here, but I doubt Intrepid would go for it.

Technically I asked this as a stream QA question already, a while back, right after the big 'No CC vs Greens' reveal, and I believe the answer is that Mana Reduction and similar don't work on them.

That's not necessarily what Noaani is talking about, but as of last information, that's where we are, I think. I'll recheck it to make sure that the answer was actually as comprehensive as I remember it (i.e. that we could draw definite conclusions about mana-affecting abilities in general)

Dizz1

I prefer GW2's way.

Resource is a weird thing to me. The Explosion in KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! for example, I never seen any game that has a spell like Explotion that deal massive damage near 1 or 2 shots that will consume like half of mana pool.(Maybe it's because I don't play that many of games.) Almost every game I played mages usually end the fight before their mana ran out, or they die before mana ran out. Of course I only consider 1v1 situation here. Mana or mana management feels too little in fight but more important in the preparations between fights, and it's not only the problem about resource system but also the cost of spell to me.

So I not really a fan to any resource especially mana, but I don't mind if Intrepid want to design that way.

Veeshan

tbh the reason why everyone has the same resource pool is due to secondary classes, rogue with mage secondary well now what are they gonna use magical attacks based on energy or what do they get a new mana bar or something now??? who the f knows :P lol

Mana is pretty universal tbh for physical and magic users, maybe i just watch to much anime but in terms of anime mana can be used by physical fighters to enhance them enternals, str or speed and so on is amplified by the use of mana in most anime series, mages are the ones that can use mana externaly in the form of say fireballs and so on.

I think in terms of AoC the use of mana is fine for universal use makes it easier for the use of the 64 class system however you could alter the way mana works i guess for some classes like rogues might have very little max mana (or they can have alot of mana but are very innifient with it so skills take alot more) however they have super high mana regeneration which then basicly becomes WoW rogues energy however it still makes sense in the term of a rogue with a secondary archytpe of mage since the magic still reflects the use of say enhancing weapons to do fire dmg or launching a fireball per say

Veeshan

Chicago wrote: »

What do you guys think about this? Im really hoping we dont have mana on a rogue or fighter and hope to see resorce management become a real thing down the line, gopefully they touch on this during the rogue showcase 😊

what do you do then when the rogue chooses a magical archytype as a secondary like mage or summoner though? i think there better off keeping mana universal for everyone maybe alter the way it functions per class like if u want a WoW rogue energy system just have rogue have low max mana but regens super fast. now we have a mana system that resembles energy but doesnt cause issues when a magical secondary class gets involved at 25.
Imo Physical classes fighter/rogue would use there mana internally to increase speed and strength where mages use it externally. Archtypes like rogue with mage secondary would be at the start of learning to use it externally aswell as internally (where mage fighter would be the other way round).
As far as i see it physical roles have learnt to use mana interaly along with infusing equipment (take the tanks aegis ability he infuses shield with mana), where mages and summoners use it externally to manafest things. Rangers seems to sit in a hybrid of both atm where they can do a bit of both for example there jump rooting nature ability would be infusing it into there legs for the acrobatics and then into arrows which unleash the roots on collision with the gorund making the nature roots. Any secondary classes that have a physical/magic would be like 66% internal/equipment with 33% external use persay if your physical/physical you 100% internal use and mage/mage would be 100% external use of mana.
atleast thats how i see mana in AoC currently

JamesSunderland

I think it's perfectly reasonable for the intended universal resource design intrepid is going for, making said universal resource and stats/skills related to it(MP consumption reduction/increases, MP burns/recovers, MP Regens/degens) meaningful throught all archetypes and their combinations.

For example the universal A1 Base Stat "Mentality" has MP Regeneration attatched to it as one of its benefits,
All A1 characters had increased mana regeneration as one of their passive skills,
Boss mechanics that affects mana and etc...

Stepping outside of the universal resource territory creates extra unnecessary balance issues and ends up making all of them less meaningful than they could be individually.

Having extra class specific resource on top of the main universal resource works fine tho, Ashes is going that way and that was a concept present in both Archeage and Lineage 2.

Zyllos

NiKr wrote: »

Zyllos wrote: »

But, just forcing everyone to use mana to make it a common resource really limits interactions. Now, anyone that has a debuff for a resource would affect everyone. But with multiple types of stats, now various classes would affect only certain archetype combinations.

I don't quite get how something that interacts and affects everyone is limiting, while something that only interacts between a small group of archetypes is not limiting.

...

Zyllos wrote: »

No need to worry about stat splits. Stamina is always just a 0/100 resource. Rage is always a 0/100 resource.

Which is exactly why they sound boring as a mechanic and would require a ton of additional interactions to come close to mana's potential gameplay. But adding all those interactions would require overcomplication of abilities or overabundance of abilities. Imo both are bad choices.

The limiting aspect is that everyone that has something that either burns mana or lowers mana, it affects everyone the same. This limits all of these types of skills to just be simple, effect everyone abilities.

Having different resource types, you can have certain archetype combinations that will affect specific type of archetypes. You have a mana drain/mana burn, it will only ever affect the Mage/Summoner/Cleric archetypes.

Have a stamina drain/fatigue skill? Then you can affect Rogue/Ranger archetypes.

Have a derager/calming skill? Then you can affect any Fighter/Tank archetypes.

Once you have this type of splitting, and in knowing each resource type is handled differently, you can generate/create unique skills/abilities/spells around them. This also goes inline with buffs, too.

Rage is gained by using any combat ability/melee attack along with staying in combat keeps it from dropping. Thus calming skills could lower % gained of Rage or even have Rage removers. I am thinking of the Enchanter (Summoner/Bard) being good against Fighter/Tank classes by controlling Rage resources. You can also have Shaman (Cleric/Summoner), Scryer (Cleric/Bard), Siren (Bard/Tank), or basically any of the Bard archetypes can provide Rage inducing skills that increase Rage gained, or even provide a passive Rage gain.

Stamina is a stat that is quickly gained over time but skills drain lots of stamina per use. Stamina basically limits how fast use of abilities can be performed in a duration of time. Many Cleric archetypes can provide Stamina heals or Stamina regens to provide Rogue/Ranger archetypes ways to lengthen the duration of ability usage, thus increasing the DPS of said class.

Mana is basically what you would think for any spell casting class. It limits sustainability for any Mage/Summoner/Cleric archetype. So any abilities that affects this stat lowers sustainability in the long term, making it where archetypes that can wither the duration of skills can win over Mana users.

If everything was reduced down to Mana, then you can have any of the archetypes focusing on other archetypes. Everyone is just the same. So either you have a weak regen/strong regen, weak burn/strong burn. And every archetype that affects a resource can affect every archetype in the game. There is no delineation between who it can affect.

The fear of overabundance of abilities never matters because no archetype combination, except maybe for one or two, can affect all types, thus needed several copies of abilities/spells that affect each. And on those cases, the ability would affect two or the three or all of them and there is no reason to have to remember. The only overabundance would be if you looks at all archetypes as a whole, but nobody is all archetypes at once and is thus a moot point.

The "boring" is subjective. What I find as boring someone else wouldn't and vis versa. So, there is no way to make arguments in this. I just want people to see that having mana as the sole resource pigeon holes every archetype that has these abilities to be exact the same and affect all archetypes the same way. There is no variety or gameplay aspects that can be built around them as everyone is the same.

Each resource is not the same. They act differently and provide a very different function.

NiKr wrote: »

If I have several abilities that interact with, say, tanks, but for whatever reason tanks fall out of meta and almost no one uses them, then I have completely useless abilities now...

If this ever happens, then this is a fault of Intrepid, not interactions of abilities/spells with various resources, and a far greater problem exists.

Noaani wrote: »

Zyllos wrote: »

No need to worry about stat splits. Stamina is always just a 0/100 resource. Rage is always a 0/100 resource. Mana is the only one that is affected by a stat, Intelligence. Or Spirit if they add some special way to regen mana outside of just straight Mana Regen / s stat.

I mean, this is patently untrue.

The most popular RPG on PC ever (Skyrim) has stamina as a stat affected resource, and I have played games where mana works as a percentage.

What you are talking about is how those specific terms work in one specific game - not how they always work or have to work.

You are right, Skyrim has this in mind. But, if you notice, your attacks/abilities doesn't drain Mana in that game. They use Stamina. And spells don't use Stamina, they use Mana. So, the point still stands, it's just Skyrim assumes every character is all archetypes of this game at the same time, all the time. And then various abilities/stats affects the character in various ways.

The only difference is now in AoC, a player has to pick their archetype, thus only getting either one or two of their resources to manage their skills/abilities/spells.

Spif

Making mana a resource for all classes simplifies a lot of things. Bards, drains, resource pool recovery gear, recovery potions, etc. ESO pretty much has this. While there is a stamina bar, it regens similar to mana

Rage (resource recovery from getting hit) is a mechanic that can still be used with mana. Give tanks a spec option that increases mana costs but also gains mana when hit. Mana regen-per-second matters less and getting hit for mana matters more
Energy (fast recovering but shallow mana pool) is tougher to do with mana, but possible. I'm not sure it's worth it.
Combo points and finishers can still be done with mana
Builder/spender is still possible with mana, the Cleric has something like this with deal-damage-to-buff-heals, and I hope they have a heal-to-buff-damage mechanic too

Songcaller

I prefer everyone to use mana. I would also prefer stamina for dodge and block.

Solvryn

Explain it from a lore perspective

Songcaller

Stamina for dodge and block because the people trained before leaving Sanctus. The Goddess of Creation imbued the Divine Gateways to infuse the souls with Mana. Mana is the lifeforce and corruption can turn the lifeforce askew. Mana therefore, links the souls to the goddess of creation, though the souls are free to align with other deities.

Diamaht

Chicago wrote: »

What do you guys think about this? Im really hoping we dont have mana on a rogue or fighter and hope to see resorce management become a real thing down the line, gopefully they touch on this during the rogue showcase 😊

I like the idea as long as the itemization is done right.

If I want more mana for more ability spam I should have to sacrafice some protection for it. Gear with high protection should add little or no mana to the pool.

This way, we are still required to make decisions, thereby enabling a larger variety of builds.

Noaani

Solvryn wrote: »

Explain it from a lore perspective

Asking for this - or perhaps assuming it matters - shows a lack of understanding as to what the word "mana" means.

There is obviously the biblical meaning (manna), which was said to be an unleavened bread - but I dont really go in for made up stories so I dont mind if you ignore this.

Then there is the Polynesian term "mana". This can perhaps best be described as the over all respect a person has earned in their life, from being a respected figure of authority, being wise, well regarded physically imposing or highly charismatic (usually a combination of these is needed for someone to have a lot of mana).

Then there is the Hindi term "mana", which happens to be a girls name meaning supernatural power.

So, based on the above, Intrepid can claim mana in Verra is what ever they want it to be.

Since magic in Ashes is from manipulating The Essence, Intrepid could just say that this manipulation saps a persons mental and physical strength just fighting in melee combat can. That is enough if a lore explanation.

However, if we are going to ask for lore based explanations for things like this, we need an explanation for cooldowns. If I use sniper arrow, as an example, what is stopping me - in terms of lore - from doing that again with my next arrow 2 seconds later?

Solvryn

Noaani wrote: »

Solvryn wrote: »

Explain it from a lore perspective

Asking for this - or perhaps assuming it matters - shows a lack of understanding as to what the word "mana" means.

There is obviously the biblical meaning (manna), which was said to be an unleavened bread - but I dont really go in for made up stories so I dont mind if you ignore this.

Then there is the Polynesian term "mana". This can perhaps best be described as the over all respect a person has earned in their life, from being a respected figure of authority, being wise, well regarded physically imposing or highly charismatic (usually a combination of these is needed for someone to have a lot of mana).

Then there is the Hindi term "mana", which happens to be a girls name meaning supernatural power.

So, based on the above, Intrepid can claim mana in Verra is what ever they want it to be.

Since magic in Ashes is from manipulating The Essence, Intrepid could just say that this manipulation saps a persons mental and physical strength just fighting in melee combat can. That is enough if a lore explanation.

However, if we are going to ask for lore based explanations for things like this, we need an explanation for cooldowns. If I use sniper arrow, as an example, what is stopping me - in terms of lore - from doing that again with my next arrow 2 seconds later?

I'm well aware of what mana means, thanks though.

Kilion

I don't like it but in context of what I have read about this subject from Steven and Intrepid they have made a conclusive lore explanation why every archetype in this world basically uses mana. Would I like to see stamina or so? Yes, but I made my peace with that probably not being the case or it being the secondary resource of a class at most.

I think the unique "resource mechanic" will be what we saw in some of the class previews already. Conviction for Clerics, Elemental Stacks for mages and such. Add to that all the horizontal progression and even without the different base resources, gameplay will still probably be quite compelling. At least thats where i stand now, we will see after A2 whether that applies

unknown

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Bapfi_Boandl

Noaani wrote: »

Solvryn wrote: »

Explain it from a lore perspective

[... ] Intrepid can claim mana in Verra is what ever they want it to be.
Since magic in Ashes is from manipulating The Essence, Intrepid could just say that this manipulation saps a persons mental and physical strength just fighting in melee combat can. That is enough if a lore explanation.

I love your referral to the essence. If it is called Essence instead of Mana there would be no confusen. Every class can use the "essence" and there might not be association's with other games where Mana is used. I guess it would be another small step to an unique mmo which stands out of the croud. Really great thought Noaani

Noaani

Solvryn wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Solvryn wrote: »

Explain it from a lore perspective

Asking for this - or perhaps assuming it matters - shows a lack of understanding as to what the word "mana" means.

There is obviously the biblical meaning (manna), which was said to be an unleavened bread - but I dont really go in for made up stories so I dont mind if you ignore this.

Then there is the Polynesian term "mana". This can perhaps best be described as the over all respect a person has earned in their life, from being a respected figure of authority, being wise, well regarded physically imposing or highly charismatic (usually a combination of these is needed for someone to have a lot of mana).

Then there is the Hindi term "mana", which happens to be a girls name meaning supernatural power.

So, based on the above, Intrepid can claim mana in Verra is what ever they want it to be.

Since magic in Ashes is from manipulating The Essence, Intrepid could just say that this manipulation saps a persons mental and physical strength just fighting in melee combat can. That is enough if a lore explanation.

However, if we are going to ask for lore based explanations for things like this, we need an explanation for cooldowns. If I use sniper arrow, as an example, what is stopping me - in terms of lore - from doing that again with my next arrow 2 seconds later?

I'm well aware of what mana means, thanks though.

Then why ask the question you asked?

If you were well aware, it would have been obvious that the question was pointless.

Kilion

Baldi_Boandl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Solvryn wrote: »

Explain it from a lore perspective

[... ] Intrepid can claim mana in Verra is what ever they want it to be.
Since magic in Ashes is from manipulating The Essence, Intrepid could just say that this manipulation saps a persons mental and physical strength just fighting in melee combat can. That is enough if a lore explanation.

I love your referral to the essence. If it is called Essence instead of Mana there would be no confusen. Every class can use the "essence" and there might not be association's with other games where Mana is used. I guess it would be another small step to an unique mmo which stands out of the croud. Really great thought Noaani

The thing is that the Essence is not varying in amount amongst people. The Essence just is. But the power to manipulate it to use superhuman strength varies between individuals, hence the Essence stays the same, but the mana pool - the strength to manipulate - is different.

This also ties in with the "mortal coil" which is basically the converter. All archetypes manipulate Essence by using up some of their mana and depending on what their individual mortal coil looks like they will be able to summon cones to protect, call forth giant weapons that slam the ground or manipulate life itself to heal.
The basic shape of the mortal coil is basically the reason for why there are archetypes even though everyone is manipulating the same thing.

Just to add some more details to the basic concept of Ashes. (Source)

tautau

If they said 'Essence' rather than 'Mana' it would confuse so many people who buy after release and are used to playing games with Health and Mana. Calling it 'mana' is the correct choice.

Child Item