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Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Totally agree it's been shit for a few years now. Also agree that it shouldn't exist if it isnt meaningful (nothing should).
Like you though, I'd rather see it be meaningful than be removed.
Loved reading this
I'd love to hear more use cases of mana management and how you all would have it implemented into Ashes of Creation
Asherons Call had stamina to mana and mana to stamina spells, when you were fighting you were constantly managing your mana lest you run out.
I'm not a fan of just mana as a resource, I think it takes away from the experience. Just like I think having to constantly drug through a game where you hit a wall on what you can do makes for a terrible experience.
Team work should make things much more efficient, but I don't think it should be the requirement.
"The Ten separated from the others and began to teach the Ancients the Secrets of the Essence."
Mana is not the word to be using at all in AoC. We should be speaking in terms of this games vision of it's lore and have that bethe guide of essence management.
For instance, hints provided in this lore statement
"The essence is a stream that exists across all planes of existence, but it exists at different levels of strength essentially at different levels that can be utilized; and the void is the furthest... There is a very minute amount of essence that can be found within the void. However the planes of existence that are in Ashes of Creation- they are connected across bridges created by the essence."
1. This suggests that essence is derived from a common stream, and across all planes
2. But at differing levels of strength
3. The void where 3 of "The Ten" were banished too has the least level of strength in essence
These are all clues as to how the lore needs to dictate the mechanics of the games play
So essence management should be more thought of as a stream of flow from the source stream itself. This suggests an essence tethering and a class needing it to heal, or a dps needing it to do damage or a tank needing it to keep the attention of a mob all should have to drink from the same river, but the river like bandwidth is only so wide on the plane you are on. And due to someone in the party drinking too much the others in the party have less to drink
Perhaps bosses or mobs can even affect a players essence tether. Such as a void mob that lives without essence, has the ability to naturally narrow the flow of essence of a party of the material plane of which Vera is in.
Can go so far as to say the alignments of the constellations can narrow or open the stream so some bosses literally have to be hunted during certain constellations apex?
So long explanation short....
Traditional mechanics on mana management need to be re thought. The story, the lore should guide the game mechs.
I'm a bit of a hater of the current mana system atm. Currently it seems to work similar as it did in Rift, wich is the game I played the most with that kind of system (big pool of resource that slowly drains away and you need to be conservative with).
It is bad and unfun for several reasons.
Me as a healer want to do everything I possibly can to help and support my teamates, at all times, even if they screw up somehow. I want to save them even if they make a mistake. Obviously if they do a big enough mistake they are gonna die, but I want to try and save them. Letting someone die or not heal them to full health goes so much in the wrong direction of my healer mindset and why I choose to play healer. Just the thought that I should NOT heal someone to full or be slow and conservative with mana is plain RIDICULOUS.
I MUCH prefered the "mana" system and healing classes in warhammer online were every class had a medium amount of energy that fairly quickly refills constantly. As long as you had enough energy you could spam away all you wanted but when you reached 0 you could still do abilities short after and be helpful but not as efficently. Maybe working 50% as efficent if you did nothing to get your mana back up with potions, waiting a short while or pressed some mana recovery ability.
So it was more of an efficency meter. The better gear, skill, awareness and use of abilities you had the more efficent you would be. Much more fun!
The main thing I am against is the DOWNTIME with big pool of mana and when empty you are fish in barrel and just waiting.
I am NOT against some sort of mana management.
@novercalis
"Wizards in EQ were limited to like 4-5 spells before being Out of mana for ~10min."
You can not be serious that you enjoyed that, NO WAY DUDE.
i really liked castigation and i hope it is brought back how it was in a1.
also, i really hope the bard has some sort of proximity based mana recharge for the party and the summoner has a single target mana recharge, maybe at the cost of health or pet's health. i want the summoner to be a mix of the summoner and elven elder from l2.
i also liked gift of the magi
Yea, I played both those games and liked their systems. ESO went even more in that direction too, no cooldowns on abilities with very fast mana regen, so you could spam an expensive ability maybe 3 times and then be oom for a while but it was still an option, so managing mana was very strategic.
Think I chimed in earlier in this thread, but cooldowns plus watching your mana? Meh, AoC's current system seems out of date. Especially when people sit in the videos, brings up memories from EQ with outdated systems.
what you call outdated i call consistent. people dont like change as much as you think.
-As a caster main, I love Massive damage! But I would love some form of Utility in the party dynamic beyond just "sleep that target" and babysit it's timer! Whether it's a MP regen Seal I place on the ground, an AoE MP regen Aura surrounding me, or a Channeled AoE MP regen, i'm totally for it!
Or the Mage Aura causes all spells to cost 0MP for 30 seconds.
At the start in tl i had to constantly look for a fire to sit by (similar to the rest), which helps regenerate health and mana faster, otherwise would take forever, yes i could use a potion to at least recover some health but i've never been much of using potions either or even food for the case; so eventually i progressed more into the game and found a solution to that annoyance, a combo of skills that helps me to self regenerate health and mana faster:
earths blessing
natures blessing
healing touch
asceticism
mana amp
thunders blessing
Of course there is more benefits from the equipment add to it...but my point is that to be self sufficient i actually had to abdicate of the choice of other skills that i could/would like to use instead. In aoc the pillars for such are the bard and cleric, beside those the others tend to struggle much more with it. I think (or what i would like to see) every class should manage to be self sufficient on its own, some more passive skills/traits regarding mana, boosting the regeneration of it, a self healing skill for each class like gw2 has, would be a great addition too imo. None of this will or has to disregard the potions, rations or still grouping.
p.s.: Also having to constantly sit on the floor and rest for mass pvp scenarios wont do tho...
Yeah, if you've not got a Mana-specced Bard just throwing Mana out and doing nothing else, then groups seem to struggle. No matter how many times you ask them to just work in some weapon combos.
Anyone remember when we were told Bard wouldn't just be a Buff-Bot? Nope, it's a Mana-Bot instead.
Fortunately for me, I got everything I wanted, even if it wasn't in Ashes.
Just today I was main heal for a 5-man Malakar PUG in Throne and Liberty and every single aspect of this came up, even moreso because Malakar is difficult to disengage from (which you have to do in order to drink Milk to restore MP when it falls) and I had to consider switching to my Mana Efficiency/MP Regen set, but only after I was sure that the other people knew what to do enough that I wouldn't need my 'Beholder' set (for Evasion).
I had a good Mana-gement experience today. The knowledge that everyone has a 1 minute timer on their self-heals really adds to that too, for me.
Every day now I'm super thankful for the many things TL got, that match the wishes we've discussed over the years. Sorry it didn't turn out as awesome for the rest of the L2 crowd (or, at least, some of them, since nearly everyone outside my own guild that I'm friendly with ingame eventually tells me that they came from either years of L2 or years of FF11, so some of 'em are fine, even if they weren't all around here).
Man... we even got the Goblin Bombs... life is good...
Blown past falling sands…
If a game has Support Classes, there needs to be something to support. It needs to feel impactful. (Otherwise, bring another DPS or Heals).
I imagine that Bard DPS support also love what they provide to a party. But we don't hear from the DPS about "damage management".
I like the direction Ashes Mana Management and many other aspects are heading, even tho its certainly more lenient than older L2 versions and more akin to H5 level mana management i believe it to be a good balance.
While Ashes is still in the oven, sadly no recent title peaked my interest nor provided me with what i desire in this and many other aspects. Thankfully over those last 2 years L2 Private servers communities are pushing Lineage 2 limits to the heavens with amazing unique customizations that improved already amazing Old L2 systems(even getting some ideas from Archeage/Ashes) and their populations are reaching new records, even attracting people from other games and some old friends and enemies i haven't seem in almost a decade and that's certainly providing me a great enjoyment.
Aren't we all sinners?