Guild Wars 2

will a mana system ever be introduced? I feel cooldowns only are inadequate

Never, it’d be too complicated, no GW2 players want anything that’s hard.
Spamming 1 is the best thing you get.

pullnointer.1476:

will a mana system ever be introduced? I feel cooldowns only are inadequate

No, at some point it was in the game but they scraped the idea.

For an action combat game, the mana system just slows things down. For a strategic combat game, it’s far more appropriate.

I think both types of combat have something to offer.

kokiman.2364:

pullnointer.1476:

will a mana system ever be introduced? I feel cooldowns only are inadequate

No, at some point it was in the game but they scraped the idea.

they scrapped the original mana system and released early before having a chance to introduce a new one

pullnointer.1476:

kokiman.2364:

pullnointer.1476:

will a mana system ever be introduced? I feel cooldowns only are inadequate

No, at some point it was in the game but they scraped the idea.

they scrapped the original mana system and released early before having a chance to introduce a new one

The scrapped the original mana system with no intent of introducing a new one. At the time the devs felt that cool downs were enough. They said mana slowed the game play down and they didn’t want that. It simply wasn’t necessary.

At the time there were all sorts of negative feedback about mana potions, and since those went with the mana most saw it as a positive change.

With or without mana – it is the same. Resource system like the one thieves have? Maybe a good idea, so every class has its own. But mana, like AION or WoW? Whats the difference with or without? Oh, no, I am out of mana, I need to refile…And? What new to the game does it bring?

,mana and its equiv is required in static targetted ability games like wow, swtor, rift ect, to add depth to otherwise shallow gameplay, which is fine. In ge2 combat is more action oriented, any ability can miss if you evade it, you can interrupt virtually anything, and movement is key. A mana system would detract from the visceral nature of the combat.

Funset.7893:

With or without mana – it is the same. Resource system like the one thieves have? Maybe a good idea, so every class has its own. But mana, like AION or WoW? Whats the difference with or without? Oh, no, I am out of mana, I need to refile…And? What new to the game does it bring?

Well GW1 handled it pretty well.

don’t worry the next guild wars will have 1 skill on your bar and that skill with auto-attack, that’s what the comunity want’s

Yeah, we should reduce the sill number to 2.
Auto Attack and Auto Heal.
No conditions, no KDs not dodging, no ranged combat, no spells, nothing, just face to face combat.

Funset.7893:

With or without mana – it is the same. Resource system like the one thieves have? Maybe a good idea, so every class has its own. But mana, like AION or WoW? Whats the difference with or without? Oh, no, I am out of mana, I need to refile…And? What new to the game does it bring?

refer to gw1

Lol you guys are acting like a bunch of simpletons.

Apparently, lacking a mana system reduces the value of the game to mere auto-attacking and likely the same people complain that Orr is now too hard because apparently they can’t auto attack everything mindlessly.

Forget that you need to watch your position, aim your skills properly, time them for optimal effect or to save your life or any of that. No, it’s just cheap and only auto-attacking…and when it’s not it’s too hard…and somehow having everything cost mp would change all that.

Heh, okay. Sure…

Leo G.4501:

Lol you guys are acting like a bunch of simpletons.

Apparently, lacking a mana system reduces the value of the game to mere auto-attacking and likely the same people complain that Orr is now too hard because apparently they can’t auto attack everything mindlessly.

Forget that you need to watch your position, aim your skills properly, time them for optimal effect or to save your life or any of that. No, it’s just cheap and only auto-attacking…and when it’s not it’s too hard…and somehow having everything cost mp would change all that.

Heh, okay. Sure…

The problem is a lot of players of Guild Wars 2 have come from Guild Wars 1 which was a much more “strategic” game. The difference in strategy is huge. But it wasn’t nearly as action based.

They don’t see the depth because the nature of the depth has changed. It’s not as in your face as the depth of combat in Guild Wars 1.

Meh, this game makes you realize Mana was kinda a dumb system to begin with that just wasted time. GW1 used an Energy system that was closer to how Thief function.

apocalyps.7106:

don’t worry the next guild wars will have 1 skill on your bar and that skill with auto-attack, that’s what the comunity want’s

So if i understand you correctly adding mana would at last make combat interesting like wow combat, right?
So standing in one spot and spamming few skills while pushing one more button from time to time to drink some mana pot would be somehow better than what we have now?

If anything gw2 combat system is one of the best i’ve seen in mmorpg, and one of the best aspects of this game. If they started to change it for more wow-like-feel people would just leave.

They scrapped the idea just like potions

I do not think it would work well with weapon and element etc.. switching. If there was mana more then likely ppl would never switch weapons and this is a major part of combat.
Its also a good way to keep things easier to keep balanced in that if mana was the limiting factor to an ability use then stacking means of getting more mana would comply remove the factor but by making every thing cd they can changes things if the cd is to long or to short.

One of the strategies used in Guild Wars 1, at least in PvP, was mana denial, where mesmers would use skills to steal or lower your mana. It was pretty annoying. Fun if you were a mesmer, annoying to anyone else.

That’s why I played a mesmer. lol

Mana is a money sink and time sink. With mana, you need it to use skills. Mana pots cost money. If you have money, you can buy tons of mana pots and save time while farming and just down pots repeatedly like a potaholic. However, you’ll be wasting lots of gold over time buying pots. If you don’t have money, you will be out of combat for long periods of time while waiting for your mana to refill. Either way it wastes A) your time, or B ) your money.

http://youtu.be/K0Gx8hYi0hQ

In the original design they had this like in GW1, but it was scrapped pretty early on and frankly I like the results. They also had mana and health potions originally as well, but decided to get rid of them too.

please stop commenting about WoW’s and similar mana systems. they are obviously bad.

pullnointer.1476:

please stop commenting about WoW’s and similar mana systems. they are obviously bad.

They are? How did you come to this conclusion?

Misiek.7325:

apocalyps.7106:

don’t worry the next guild wars will have 1 skill on your bar and that skill with auto-attack, that’s what the comunity want’s

So if i understand you correctly adding mana would at last make combat interesting like wow combat, right?
So standing in one spot and spamming few skills while pushing one more button from time to time to drink some mana pot would be somehow better than what we have now?

If anything gw2 combat system is one of the best i’ve seen in mmorpg, and one of the best aspects of this game. If they started to change it for more wow-like-feel people would just leave.

no you don’t understand me correctly, my point was that this combat system, as active as it is it for simpletons, i never played wow, am an gw1 player and in that game there were no mana potions, you had regen.

so i am not a supporter of introducing mana in the game at this stage, it should of been done at the begining, it wasn’t done, it’s ok, can’t change now.

if they would of made a cross between number of skills from gw1 (or at least half of them) mana system and mechanics of the skills, and gw2 combat , like dodge, jump , ect. that system would of been more suited for this game, from my point of view,

why abandon projects that worked this i can’t figure out on a-net’s behalf.

If you want mana, play thief. intiative is basically mana without potions

KeyLimPi.9031:

If you want mana, play thief. intiative is basically mana without potions

Except they don’t have cooldowns. GW1 skills had restrictive cooldowns on skills and a restrictive mana pool.

Mana, essentially, is just a “global cooldown” attached to all your spells. Basically, it’d be something similar to the Thief resource system, except your skills have cooldowns as well.

So, strategically, what does this give us? Basically, if all the skills stay the way they are, you would fight until you run out of mana, then be forced to disengage. You can’t keep fighting because you can’t use skills anymore. This turns into a “whoever runs out of mana first wins” sort of deal, essentially. Resource management becomes the metagame.

Mana potions would introduce a “Richer player wins” scenario. Whoever can afford the potions have a clear advantage over those who cannot.

Mana would also likely introduce some “mana management” specs, where you would have to gear and trait into maintaining mana at the sacrifice of adding interesting effects to your current skills.

Overall, Mana is meant to be a “long term” resource, where you have to manage it across multiple encounters. GW2 doesn’t really work like that because you heal to full between encounters. Having your mana refill to full between encounters completely defeats any strategic elements to mana. But how would you refill your mana? Sitting still until it regens slowly is dumb. Potions are not gonna happen any time soon. Do you have to go back to town to refill mana? Go back to a keep?

Having no mana = 1 spam game. Yes, that is what GW2 is at currently. May I cite that the most successful games, such as LoL have a mana system? It requires more critical decision making skills. Hmmm, should I spam everything I have right now, or play defensively and passively.

And for everyone talking about potions, GW1 did not have potions. Mana regen. was so fast you didn’t need it.

Except not every character in LoL has a mana system? A lot of them have alternative resources or no resource at all. Are you saying those characters are less strategic than those who have mana?

Katai.6240:

Except not every character in LoL has a mana system? A lot of them have alternative resources or no resource at all. Are you saying those characters are less strategic than those who have mana?

Yes. Notice strongest top laners are mostly manaless (Shen in my times). They just spam like in GW2. I don’t see the strategy in that other than its spam advantage.

apocalyps.7106:

if they would of made a cross between number of skills from gw1 (or at least half of them) mana system and mechanics of the skills, and gw2 combat , like dodge, jump , ect. that system would of been more suited for this game, from my point of view,

why abandon projects that worked this i can’t figure out on a-net’s behalf.

I wish I could quote some of the devs directly but that’s a lot of threads in other forums to go through. Anet has said that what they themselves created in GW1 was an unnecessarily complicated and difficult to balance combat system with the number of skills they had in GW1. A lot of GW1 players had fun breaking the game with broken skill/class combos but for the devs it was kind of a nightmare. Or at least, that’s how they made it seem. That’s one of the stated reasons for reducing the skills to what we have now in GW1. In other words, you and other players thought that system worked, the devs didn’t.

Just like the mana thing, Both mana (even gw1’s energy system) and the cooldown system have pros and cons and neither is inherently better but my personal opinion is that the cooldown system gets rid of that pesky downtime almost entirely.

Eh, all I ask is that you consider what the dev’s might have been thinking instead of writing them off entirely.

nightwulf.1986:

apocalyps.7106:

if they would of made a cross between number of skills from gw1 (or at least half of them) mana system and mechanics of the skills, and gw2 combat , like dodge, jump , ect. that system would of been more suited for this game, from my point of view,

why abandon projects that worked this i can’t figure out on a-net’s behalf.

I wish I could quote some of the devs directly but that’s a lot of threads in other forums to go through. Anet has said that what they themselves created in GW1 was an unnecessarily complicated and difficult to balance combat system with the number of skills they had in GW1. A lot of GW1 players had fun breaking the game with broken skill/class combos but for the devs it was kind of a nightmare. Or at least, that’s how they made it seem. That’s one of the stated reasons for reducing the skills to what we have now in GW1. In other words, you and other players thought that system worked, the devs didn’t.

Just like the mana thing, Both mana (even gw1’s energy system) and the cooldown system have pros and cons and neither is inherently better but my personal opinion is that the cooldown system gets rid of that pesky downtime almost entirely.

Eh, all I ask is that you consider what the dev’s might have been thinking instead of writing them off entirely.

Well, energy based system allow for more finetuning of abilities. If you consider a combo of abilities too strong, you can only increase the cooldown, so that this combo doesn’t occure that often, or change skills in strength/functionality.
With energy you could also just make the combo itself more costly, and spread the bonus energy needed across all skills in the combination. That way each individual skill wouldn’t get alot worse, but the actual combination could become impossible to perform.

Just because the dev thinks something doesn’t make it correct. Just look to how many people are disappointed with GW2 combat system and pvp. If they simply kept the combat system the way it was in GW1, GW2 pvp would’ve taken off since beta (it has for GW1. it was a proven method). Instead, they scrapped everything and look at pvp now.

^The current state of pvp has little to do with the combat mechanics, but more with balance and (lack of an) infrastructure.

^ Actually GW2 is more balanced than in GW1. But that shows you that balancing isn’t everything if the basic combat mechanics are boring.

Phira.3970:

^ Actually GW2 is more balanced than in GW1. But that shows you that balancing isn’t everything if the basic combat mechanics are boring.

The thing is GW1 combat was very bland now you had more chose how to build but that not combat. GW2 has rolling skill shots combos both at melee and on a ranges and countless environment weapons that are used in both pve and pvp and wvw!

Phira.3970:

Just because the dev thinks something doesn’t make it correct. Just look to how many people are disappointed with GW2 combat system and pvp. If they simply kept the combat system the way it was in GW1, GW2 pvp would’ve taken off since beta (it has for GW1. it was a proven method). Instead, they scrapped everything and look at pvp now.

I absolutely agree on your first point about what devs say and being correct. However, all I said was that they were talking about their experiences regarding making GW1 and reacting to player use of the huge skill pool. If you’re saying they were lying about the difficulty and their experiences, I don’t think we can say their experiences were falsified without more information.

Moreover, the devs have also said that they were not interested in making a prettier GW1. That was just not on the table. Players liked some things and disiked some things about GW1, devs liked some things and disliked some things about it and now we have a GW2 that is a result of looking back at what worked and what didn’t. Now, GW2 has a very different combat system from GW1 because they felt they had more control, not less, over the current number scheme/cooldown system. I agree with a lot of people that there is definite room for improvement (want better/tweaked support and CC) but going back to a mana/energy system isn’t really going to help in my opinion.

A lot of what I said about devs is not of paraphrasing things I remember them saying in interviews and articles so if anything you heard is not quite accurate, feel free to call me out on it.

Katai.6240:

So, strategically, what does this give us? Basically, if all the skills stay the way they are, you would fight until you run out of mana, then be forced to disengage. You can’t keep fighting because you can’t use skills anymore. This turns into a “whoever runs out of mana first wins” sort of deal, essentially. Resource management becomes the metagame.

no.

Katai.6240:

Except not every character in LoL has a mana system? A lot of them have alternative resources or no resource at all. Are you saying those characters are less strategic than those who have mana?

yes.

Phira.3970:

Having no mana = 1 spam game. Yes, that is what GW2 is at currently. May I cite that the most successful games, such as LoL have a mana system? It requires more critical decision making skills. Hmmm, should I spam everything I have right now, or play defensively and passively.

And for everyone talking about potions, GW1 did not have potions. Mana regen. was so fast you didn’t need it.

You (and alike players) should definetely try engineer. I’d really like to see how do you win a skirmish spamming your 1. Frankly speaking I’d like to see how do you win any skirmish with any class against any medium skilled player spaming your 1… Sight, exaggerations.

Phira.3970:

^ Actually GW2 is more balanced than in GW1. But that shows you that balancing isn’t everything if the basic combat mechanics are boring.

you had more build variety in gw1 tbh…

Mana/Potions is a old outdated mechanic.
*wastes bag space
*slows combat
*Removes some skill from the game. Player who buys most mana/potions has the advantage.
*Unneeded gold sink!
*opening bag during combat. uses more GUI space.

Add new types of team buffs instead.

pullnointer.1476:

Phira.3970:

^ Actually GW2 is more balanced than in GW1. But that shows you that balancing isn’t everything if the basic combat mechanics are boring.

you had more build variety in gw1 tbh…

This be because of conquest in GW2… Only thing viable are tanks.. tanks and.. roamers. I’ve never seen in a game where glass cannons are so tabooed.

dadamowsky.4692:

Phira.3970:

Having no mana = 1 spam game. Yes, that is what GW2 is at currently. May I cite that the most successful games, such as LoL have a mana system? It requires more critical decision making skills. Hmmm, should I spam everything I have right now, or play defensively and passively.

And for everyone talking about potions, GW1 did not have potions. Mana regen. was so fast you didn’t need it.

You (and alike players) should definetely try engineer. I’d really like to see how do you win a skirmish spamming your 1. Frankly speaking I’d like to see how do you win any skirmish with any class against any medium skilled player spaming your 1… Sight, exaggerations.

I meant using maybe 1 or 2 important skill after swapping and spamming 1 while waiting the entire 10 second to pass by to weapon swap again. or waiting for cooldown on skills. But then engineers can enjoy no-weapon swap cooldown , which is why I can see you feel that way in your case.

nightwulf.1986:

Phira.3970:

Just because the dev thinks something doesn’t make it correct. Just look to how many people are disappointed with GW2 combat system and pvp. If they simply kept the combat system the way it was in GW1, GW2 pvp would’ve taken off since beta (it has for GW1. it was a proven method). Instead, they scrapped everything and look at pvp now.

I absolutely agree on your first point about what devs say and being correct. However, all I said was that they were talking about their experiences regarding making GW1 and reacting to player use of the huge skill pool. If you’re saying they were lying about the difficulty and their experiences, I don’t think we can say their experiences were falsified without more information.

Never said that in my post?

Phira.3970:

nightwulf.1986:

Phira.3970:

Just because the dev thinks something doesn’t make it correct. Just look to how many people are disappointed with GW2 combat system and pvp. If they simply kept the combat system the way it was in GW1, GW2 pvp would’ve taken off since beta (it has for GW1. it was a proven method). Instead, they scrapped everything and look at pvp now.

I absolutely agree on your first point about what devs say and being correct. However, all I said was that they were talking about their experiences regarding making GW1 and reacting to player use of the huge skill pool. If you’re saying they were lying about the difficulty and their experiences, I don’t think we can say their experiences were falsified without more information.

Never said that in my post?

Good point. Thought your opening statement was a response to my talking about the devs. That was a classic case of narcissism at work. Nothing to see here, move along.

Leo G.4501:

Lol you guys are acting like a bunch of simpletons.

I agree with you. They are not even making note of how important CAST ORDER is, especially for Ele (and most non-melee style weapons/classes).

Honestly, if actions used endurance a little and it stalled at zero giving a debuff, i wouldn’t mind. But mana is indeed outdated.

I’m so glad Anet dropped the Mana + cooldown system, I always hated it. Either pick cooldown or mana, not both.

Thank you ArenaNet.

pullnointer.1476:

Phira.3970:

^ Actually GW2 is more balanced than in GW1. But that shows you that balancing isn’t everything if the basic combat mechanics are boring.

you had more build variety in gw1 tbh…

No