Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
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.