Guild Wars 2

I’m just curious as to why nothing like energy from GW1 was transfered over to GW2. There is thief initiative, and Warrior adrenaline but adrenaline is only for their profesion skill. I feel like there is too little influence over resource for skills which have soo much to offer.

please i don’t want to worry about the energy stat too, we already have to worry of magic find, critical chance, critical damage, condition damage, the 4 main stat, healing power and health…
i wouldn’t even know what to sacrifice for energy…
i really like the way it is…

Most likely due to extra balancing that comes with it. Atm they only need to worry about balancing the cd of each skill and such for availability.

With mana they will need to balance the cd with the mana cost for every skill every class got.

Also what new mechnaism would you then give the thief instead? since now every class ahve something identical to initative?

They did have mana in the alpha stage but then they didn’t like the mana system and scrapped it.

GummiBear.2756:

Also what new mechnaism would you then give the thief instead? since now every class ahve something identical to initative?

Thief is fine. They have a unique resource for their skills but I’m just surprised elementalists don’t have a “mana” like the used to. Things like Mana could really help balance things out as a second “cooldown”. Some might say X skill comes back to quick well if it required a significant resource amount then it’d be a different story.

NinjaEd.3946:

GummiBear.2756:

Also what new mechnaism would you then give the thief instead? since now every class ahve something identical to initative?

Thief is fine. They have a unique resource for their skills but I’m just surprised elementalists don’t have a “mana” like the used to. Things like Mana could really help balance things out as a second “cooldown”. Some might say X skill comes back to quick well if it required a significant resource amount then it’d be a different story.

that resource wouldnt really be unique anymore if you added mana to the toher classes, as mana is essentially the same as initiative

I’m not saying add mana to initiative. I’m saying “mana” to professions like necromancer or elementalist or guardian. 7/8 of the professions are based off cooldown and nothing else which I feel is just too similar and plain. Nothing unique or managable.

I know wht you are saying, but mana is the EXACT SAME as initative, so if you give mana to other classes, you are basically giving them the thiefs class mechanic, ergo, you would have to get the thief a new one

Not saying make mana the only thing a skill consumes. I say still keep the cooldowns but many skills seem to strong for their current cooldown. Therefore adding a certain level of resource cost might aleviate that pressure. I have nothing against the current system, I’m just wondering why no time was spent looking into other resources of skill use.

One reason I liked gw2 in beta was due to fact there is no mana, like every other game has used over the years. I much prefer it without mana.

It was dropped from the game because it caused downtime and disrupts the flow of combat. Not to mention its a gimic that wouldn’t add anything to the game, far easier to balance around cool-downs (and subsequently use skills when you need to use them) than to balance around cool-downs and mana (suddenly you have issues with your casters running out and being worthless mid fight, and that’s just pointless).

I have more fun when my decision making revolves around which ability to use rather than whether to use an ability at all. There are ways to balance individual abilities without reworking the entire class system.

Urthona.3198:

I have more fun when my decision making revolves around which ability to use rather than whether to use an ability at all. There are ways to balance individual abilities without reworking the entire class system.

I agree with the last statement. I’m just curious as to why no other resource system was invested into. Initiative was built as a burst skill kit. Many games whether they were famous or not, had a sort of resource along with cooldown. Ofcourse in those games there were many skills to chose from so I guess making a resource was to limit the ability to spam skill after skill but still. They have this entire field of opportunity to make traits revolve around as well as balance. Like many professions can just toss 5 or so spells quickly but then its all on cooldown, you know? Then people complain about that 5 being too “op” as a combination and then they alter those skills. I think some time into how those skills are used together rather than just a cooldown should be looked into.

My reply comes from someone blog and I will include the link for the entire thing:

“Oh yes, there’s also no mana bar. Instead of managing a resource and trying to maximise your damage output around it, Guild Wars 2 is all about using the right abilities for the situation at that time, with the flow of the game changing rapidly so that you’re forced to flex those abilities.”

http://www.manaobscura.com/2012/03/17/guild-wars-2-spellcasters-quick-guide/

Nox Aeterna.2965:

Most likely due to extra balancing that comes with it. Atm they only need to worry about balancing the cd of each skill and such for availability.

With mana they will need to balance the cd with the mana cost for every skill every class got.

Energy + Cooldown is much easier to balance than Energy alone (Initiative) or Cooldown alone, because it allows the team to balance powerful abilities (cooldown) with a limited ability to chain them together in a short time (Energy).

Having Initiative alone or Cooldown alone is very flawed and makes me seriously doubt GW2 will ever become an e-sport.

Nurvus.2891:

Nox Aeterna.2965:

Most likely due to extra balancing that comes with it. Atm they only need to worry about balancing the cd of each skill and such for availability.

With mana they will need to balance the cd with the mana cost for every skill every class got.

Energy + Cooldown is much easier to balance than Energy alone (Initiative) or Cooldown alone, because it allows the team to balance powerful abilities (cooldown) with a limited ability to chain them together in a short time (Energy).

Having Initiative alone or Cooldown alone is very flawed and makes me seriously doubt GW2 will ever become an e-sport.

I disagree with you there. From my point of view what you meant is that , Energy + Cd grants plus control BUT it is not easier to balance.

For a e-sport you are not wrong , the balance would become more precise therefore , yes better. But , balancing how much the cd + energy of each skill for sure takes a lot more work than just adding cd or energy to it.

I think you missed a very important aspect of game balancing, in that reasoning.

Game balancing isn’t just planning.
It’s also working out what goes wrong.

Sure, energy+cd takes more planning than just energy or just cd, but causes less balance issues.
If you break less, you spend less time fixing.

And it’s more than just about balance:
- Just Energy or just CD makes the skills harder to feel unique (you see alot of skills that work identically because of this)
- Just Energy causes spam issues (thief), and just CD causes burst issues

And implementing Initiative+Cooldowns doesn’t have to go to the extreme from the get go.
Thieves could get small cooldowns on their skills at first, just to discourage/prevent spamming, while still keeping Initiative as their main resource.
Initiative could be introduced to other professions simply as a means to prevent massive skill chaining, while still keeping cooldown as those professions’ main resource.

Essentially, Thieves would have Initiative as primary resource, and cooldowns as secondary resource; while the other professions would be the other way around.

The transition could be done gradually, this way, slowly aiming for the perfect spot.

GW2 doesn’t have room for energy management because the skill system isn’t very flexible. Your first five slots are locked, and having a skill category to balance energy usage under utility would make it mandatory to have, leaving only two slots open for utility skills.

If we had 8 open slots and a variety of energy management skills/traits, that would be another story.

Initiative is not very well designed for thieves either. Roll for initiative is okay, but you tend not to see the specific effects of the traits in combat and it has no impact on how you play.

GW2 has room.
I do agree it’d be a massive endeavor to transition from the current system into an Energy+Cooldown based system.

It could be introduced in an expansion, though.

All of the thinking behind it was in GW1.
It’s not like ANet would be trying something new to them.

Removing Mana was a conscious choice. As you see here, there was a mana bar that was in 2010. However, Arena net didn’t like how it works so they tried to find ways to make mana fun. They couldn’t. So they removed it completely.

That was Endurance.
Notice how it is used 95% for rolls (it seems like skill #2 also uses some of it, but nearly nothing).

Mana, as in WoW – a pool you can increase with gear – is a bad idea.
Energy, as in GW1 – essentially Initiative – is what GW2 should have in conjunction with cooldowns.

No it isn’t. I was watching Guild Wars 2 development very closely ever since it released the very first Teaser trailer.

However, I tried digging some relics of the past and I can only find these:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/9344-mana-potions-alternative/

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/7336-why-no-healing-potions/
(This link says Energy potions)

They are proof that it is indeed a mana bar(See the 2010 date), if you didn’t think the blue bar represents mana.

How it was suppose to work was that offensive skills uses very little mana and defensive skills uses a lot of mana. If memory serves right, dodge rolling takes 5% of the bar.

Sorry if I didn’t come out clearly.
I’m not discussing what name ANet decided to give to the bar.

To me – and I believe to alot of players – Energy is a fast moving resource like the one in GW1 and WoW’s Rogues. It’s essentially the same as Initiative.

Mana is a slow moving resource like the one in WoW, that usually requires specific mechanics or leaving combat to refill it.

Since the bar barely moved with skill usage during the video, and mostly only moved with Dodging, it just looks like a very long Endurance bar.

If defensive skills cost more Endurance, that would’ve been a neat idea if ANet had added one more thing: using skills while moving should cost additional Endurance.

The reason why they didn’t like it is because it requires you to break the flow of gameplay. It wouldn’t be fun to kill 5 things and then be forced to take a rest.

Arena Net thought that too, so mana bar is gone.

I understand, but that only happens with Mana.
I agree Mana is a bad concept.

However, that’s not the case with GW1’s Energy, wich regenerates FAST just like GW2’s Initiative.

A fast moving resource establishes the average skill usage per second, while the cooldowns establish the potential skill usage per second (burst).

Cooldown + Energy/Initiative is vastly superior to Cooldown alone or Energy alone.
In GW1, ANet could design skills with low Energy cost but high cooldown, high energy cost but low cooldown, both high, both low, and everything in between.

They had more tools to balance skills than they do now.
So now they have a harder time balancing skills, and we all see that the game spiraled towards endless kiting.

Firstly, don’t twist my words into WoW slang. I’m not talking about mana being a slow regenerating resource, I’m talking about a secondary resource that makes players think twice before tossing all their spells to fry someone. I see where AreaNet wanted fast pace combat and making more munitiions (such as arrows, bullets, “mana” or enery) would get in the way of that. But lets face facts, many skills are still unbalanced as is, some more than others. Guess it can be coined energy like how Gw1 had it however the regenration rate would definitily have to very between the professions that use it like how Elementalists in Gw1 consumed large quantities of energy but it came back fairly quick so you could throw another spell out, which I found to be enjoyable. It made my skills feel more powerful but I wasn’t god and able to toss all of them at once to obliterate a group. I like initiative a lot, (thief is my main by the way) however I feel like managing initiative becomes unaware at higher levels with how many traits are set up. For thief, to fix some issues with pvp that many complain about still, I think 2 things could be done.

A. When you hit 0 initiative, your regeneration of initiative stops for X seconds, including traits/passives. That way you must actually be aware of how low initiative goes otherwise risk being slightly vulnerable for a duration.
B. Give skills a 1 second cooldown. I like being able to burst skills quickly, but it seems literlly like a burst of the same skill in pvp and pve. C/d, backstab, sometimes death blossom depending on situation, then heartseeker them to death or toss haste in there and just 1/2 them to death. Normal weapon skills never have cd, but I’m talking about a 1 second cooldown or even .5 second cooldown for 2-5 on thief that way there is a burst still present it just makes you either wait the short time to reuse the skil or actually take use of other skills.
To any who played or play League of legends, I like how their burst mages are. They have short cooldowns but they are still there. The larger skills consume tons of mp while burst skills consume little amounts and some of them have reduced costs or more costs each conescutive use. It doesn’t let you full on machine gun your target to death with spells, but you still feel like your tossing a kitten load of dmg onto them.

I know there are some rules on the forum preventing me from using non-constructive methods of comment. Therefore, I shall censor myself:
(Censored) No (Censored).
All a finite amount of energy does is create a point where as someone cannot perform anything. This means downtimes and downtimes are boring.
Thief’s initiative is a great mechanic because the choice of ability is adversative, meaning using one will prevent the thief from using the other based on resource management whereas CD mechanics makes the use of one ability unable to use the same ability which encourages more synergy rather than adversative choices.
Throwing mana with CD is just a step back.

Because mana is a stupid idea that is only carried on in the name of copying WoW.

So apparently WoW is the only game in the world that used mana? Stop bringing that title here, you make it seem like AreaNet would copy exactly everything they would do if they approached it. LoL has mana, FFXI, has mana, LOTRO has mana, SRO has mana, almost every console rpg had some sort of “mana”. IT isn’t a WoW thing ,its an MMO thing.
Now to be constructive, energy controls how people combine spells. There arn’t really too many spells where you have the option to throw 3 large cooldown spells at once on an enemy foe but you take longbow ranger for example, they can use kb to get the target away from them, then 3 to put vulnerability up and get pet boost, then 5 or muddy terrain to keep the enemy away for longer. Right there you used 3 big spells or skills which can be done in about 2 seconds depending on if you use 5 or muddy terrain. Then you got time to just toss multi-fire or switch to shortbow and toss another 3-5 spells until they are on cooldown. I feel like strictly cd based skills are a little to similar in how professions fight. Just burst all your cooldowns to overkill a target and wait a bit for the next encounter or kite till your skills come off cooldown rinse-repeat. Many people arn’t satisfied with the running in circles combat due to how the flow is all the same. I like that I must move around during a fight and actual stay on my toes so to speak, I don’t like how the fight always looks the same.

I see this more in pvp or WvW the most since in pve things are usually easy enough for you to mess around with your build and have fun. In pvp or wvw people seem to just pick the combo that deals the most or gets ppl killed and kite until they can do it again. There is no punishment or restriction for playing like a fool. I occasionaly see people play more defensivly and make use of other skills to wear out the player and their cooldowns which I think is awesome that some ppl out there try to be unique. But most of the time its just bust your entire skill kit out and hope you get someone…

That’s the thing, NinjaEd.
Thieves should get small cooldowns just to prevent skill spamming.
Other professions should get small Initiative costs just to prevent unloading their whole arsenal in a few seconds.
Example:
Use all skills from weapon #1 → use all skills from weapon #2 → repeat.
Use all Fire skills → use all Air skills → use all Earth skills → use all Water skills → repeat.

In the same line of thought, I think Utility and Elite skills could use a small amount of Endurance, but Endurance could be higher (or regenerate slightly faster) to compensate.

Exactly nurvus, now I dont think adding a “mana” or energy resource to all professions except thief is a good idea since we would just be back at square 1. But some professions like elementalists, mesmer, guardian could use energy. Necromancer some abilities could actually consume life force but then have ways of getting that back. Warrior I think is fine however their old adrenaline system in GW1 was very well done and I liked how we needed to be in combat to use skills, Engineer and ranger are probably best left at cooldown since their wide variety of skills would be hard to find an appropriate balance of a energy or resource use.

Thief already has Initiative, what they need is small cooldowns like you suggested.
It would not go back to square 1…

Initiative works exactly like GW1’s Energy.

If you add cooldowns to Thieves, they have Initiative (primary) + Cooldown (secondary).
If you add Initiative to the other professions, they have Cooldown (primary) + Initiative (secondary)

The gameplay would still be unique to each profession, but the extreme scenarios would be prevented.

NinjaEd. mana was in GW2 and Arena removed it for a reason. Don’t you think, that they will bring it back to the game?
How do you imagine it? What consequences it will cost?

I’d say, this is nonsense, no offence.

With mana you would think twice before using magic spells you say? What, with what we have right now, you don’t need to think? I don’t think so.

Actually, right now you barely need to think.
You just need reflexes and little lag.

Wrong. You need to think, and you need reflexes. Without thinking, your game play is poor. So you do need to think.

Yes, but barely.
You mostly only think when learning the skills.
Once you are comfortable with your build, you don’t really actively think anymore.
It comes naturally.

And the suggestion I made to add small cooldowns to Thieves and small Energy costs to other professions simply prevents Thieves from spamming the same freaking key until they run out of Initiative, and prevents other professions from rotating their whole arsenal from all their weapon skills x all their weapons/attunements for max burst.

I’ll put it in a different way:
- If everyone has Initiative, some cooldowns can be lowered because there won’t be the danger of too much burst.
- If Thieves have small cooldowns, they won’t be using Heartseeker Heartseeker Heartseeker Heartseeker, and must alternative skills a bit like the other professions, but will still feel different because you’ll still be able to do stuff like Heartseeker → skill → Heartseeker → skill; or Heartseeker → skill → skill → Heartseeker

Kreslin.6832:

With mana you would think twice before using magic spells you say? What, with what we have right now, you don’t need to think? I don’t think so.

We do need to think, most of us. But some people just like to ask or google the best possible dmg output build and follow a trend that leads us to nerfs and unhappy customers. Mana or energy might aleviate some of these balance problems by preventing people to just toss every skill they got because it is availible. I think something like bringing back energy at this point in time would be extremely challenging and might upset a few along the road but the way things are currently arn’t much better anyways (for balance). Pvp should be timing and precision not waiting and rapid clicking/button smashing. I see many good players in pvp, and I don’t get upset when they slice me in half before I have time to react. But the majority I see are just kittens who found an obnoxious build and abuse it because it works. I’m sure this is hardly the case in tPvP but for casual pvp, it is quite obvious who just plays to be annoying.

Every change is an excuse for complaints.
There is no point worrying about that.

I bet less than 1% of the players check the forums, so what you see here does not represent what the playerbase thinks.

tl;dr everything above, but I really am quite happy with the way they have skill management as it is. I see no reason to add yet another thing to keep track of, and I was quite relieved to see that mana management was no longer necessary.

WoW made the MMO genre what it is today, whether we like to admit that or not. It was the first popular MMO that truly drew attention and set down the foundations(to be ignored or not, as GW2 ignores quite a bit of Actiblizzard’s ideas) for other MMOs to be made. Mana is merely a piece of the game.

No, I don’t like WoW, but it popularized the idea of mana.

I personally think it stupid. You might as well give warriors a dehydration meter in combat and force them to cram a bottle of Asurafina down their throats to keep swinging. I respect how it forces spellcaster(Or in my odd example, warriors)to time and calculate their moves and form strategies, but I just don’t like the idea.

I’m tired and brain-dead. Take my rationalization for what you will, I’m not trying to make GW2 seem like WoW.

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

WoW made the MMO genre what it is today, whether we like to admit that or not. It was the first popular MMO that truly drew attention and set down the foundations(to be ignored or not, as GW2 ignores quite a bit of Actiblizzard’s ideas) for other MMOs to be made. Mana is merely a piece of the game.

No, I don’t like WoW, but it popularized the idea of mana.

I personally think it stupid. You might as well give warriors a dehydration meter in combat and force them to cram a bottle of Asurafina down their throats to keep swinging. I respect how it forces spellcaster(Or in my odd example, warriors)to time and calculate their moves and form strategies, but I just don’t like the idea.

I’m tired and brain-dead. Take my rationalization for what you will, I’m not trying to make GW2 seem like WoW.

GW2 is a return to what MMOs were like before WoW .
WoW was made to satisfy the console gamers that were becoming aware of MMOs like EQ and UO and were whining that they couldn’t play them like a console game.
True Mana has been around since EQ if not earlier, which WoW took that idea and used in their game.
The gameplay mechanics of this game are perfect the way they are. If you want Mana go somewhere else

Thats the kind of mindset that makes this community just worse and worse. I’m not stating no “mana” or energy is game breaking, I’m just stating that AreaNet visited and had it before in Gw1, and it worked great (IMO). Everygame will have its problems, and people will always complain about those problems. But there is more than 1 way to balance a game rather than simple adjusting a damage value and displeasing population of players that use that skill.

if you added energy to the elementalist class, you would effectively kill the class since we are constantly using all the skills we have at our disposal and almost all the CD’s on all the elements are on CD at one point or another, and if we had to stop using our abilities because of “mana” you would kill the elementalist class

What you call “mana” is still in the game. But now it’s only used for dodging.

There’s suggestions about using that resource for other things, like parry or sprint.

Why is this in the suggestions forum?

MithranArkanere.8957:

What you call “mana” is still in the game. But now it’s only used for dodging.

There’s suggestions about using that resource for other things, like parry or sprint.

Endurance isn’t really skill consuming. Its only for dodging. I have read those posts on things like sprint, or a recover from knockdown/back but thats a different management. I’m talking more about a resource similar to energy from Gw1 for some, but not all the professions. And no, Atomic Sharks, energy wouldn’t kill elementalists. You said it yourself you have tons of skills on cooldown. I highly doubt you have every single attunment on cooldown, energy would make you think twice before spamming those 5 abilities and moving to the next attunement to do the same. Energy for elementalists was fairly easy to manage in GW1 as elementalists, as long as you didn’t have large cooldown spells all used at once. The regeneration of energy was like at +4 base so it was hardly a problem. The only thing I suggest energy be added is to prevent people, who are strictly working off cooldown, to bust out every skill asap to kill a target. Instead you should have to strategize and manage yourself instead of “1-5, dodge, kite, dodge, back to 1-5, run in a circle, dodge, etc”. I dont see many elementalists switch between more than 2 attunements so maybe (big maybe), energy would push those to explore the other skills at their disposal.

This is very st…. step back idea. If mana returns to the game, then the potions for mana returns, also it requites trinity dogma (tenk/healer/DPS), decrease versatility of professions (i.e. warrior and thief should no longer use ranged weapons, most professions should loose heal ability and give it to mana users only), return of toon gear based advantage over actual player skills…

No mana and no energy is fantastic concept and if somone thincs that no mana makes certain profession in advantage/OP over others – role that profession in SPvP and see how difficult is to be caster without mana.

And for those who think this way professions are the same – you guys can’t be more away from reality.
Elementalist : Most people make berserker version of it casting fire. Some people make Arcane elementalist with rampager gear. This is true power of elementalist and make it very unique while rotating elemnts. Also elementalists are the profession with smallest weapon base and they can’t swap weapons.

Necromancer : A lot of minions yeah, but there is also a different dark path where you attract conditions to yourself for your advantage – it takes a lot of skill but makes necromancer very unique.

Played mesmer, warrior, ranger and bit of thief – I really can’t say they are more like the same. All of the professions are quite unique to me with different philosophy of how to play it.

Come on! Do you really think mana will return just because you create this topic? I really, highly doubt that.

Don’t want to explain, you must know already, what will cost returning mana.

And again, I don’t agree with you. If you think that we don’t need to think in a battle, only reflexes, than I’d say, you are easy target in… pvp for example.

A system we have right now isn’t bad. It’s just some percent of players, a small percent, doesn’t like it, that’s all.

After what Arena have done, do you really think they will return mana system? Mana was here from the very beginning. But then it was taken from the game. Not for fun you know, for a reason. And after that they build system we have right now.

Mesmers were changed because of we don’t have mana. And so on and etc.

Mana won’t return in GW2. I’d like to see that.

Kreslin.6832:

Come on! Do you really think mana will return just because you create this topic? I really, highly doubt that.

Don’t want to explain, you must know already, what will cost returning mana.

And again, I don’t agree with you. If you think that we don’t need to think in a battle, only reflexes, than I’d say, you are easy target in… pvp for example.

A system we have right now isn’t bad. It’s just some percent of players, a small percent, doesn’t like it, that’s all.

After what Arena have done, do you really think they will return mana system? Mana was here from the very beginning. But then it was taken from the game. Not for fun you know, for a reason. And after that they build system we have right now.

Mesmers were changed because of we don’t have mana. And so on and etc.

Mana won’t return in GW2. I’d like to see that.

several of us showed through videos, blogs and articles that this game was designed to not use mana and why. I really don’t think the person even bothered to look at any of them