Anima_ wrote:Take for example a completely different interpretation of the mana mechanic. Lets call it Stamina and Stamina Points (SP). Every character has a SP pool and every action has an SP cost. When you use an action you can pay the SP cost to cut the actions delay in half. That's all. Don't you think that this system would be much better at actually meeting your goal?
I don't understand this. Every action has a SP cost and if you pay that cost (like you somehow had the option not to) you cut the delay in half? Do you mean I could use the ability for free if I wanted to, but pay the SP if I wanted half delay? Or that I can pay double for half delay? I'm not sure I see much merit either way
As for my own idea, I'm having a hard time translating a system I like, to something that works for these games. In WoW, as a caster, you are generally not limited by mana but by procs* and cooldowns. Your standard "single target rotation" will keep your mana up indefinitely. However, some actions, such as AoE spells and healing (as a caster), will drain your mana. If you try to do that stuff, the actual rate of regen of your standard rotation begins to matter, as well as your ability to weave those extra spells with your bread and butter ones, etc. Healers are more about prioritizing throughput vs. efficiency and making their mana pool + regen last. Anyway I'm putting this on hold for now (but will clarify if asked) with the message that I think the SotW resource system largely sucks either way. I'm not automatically opposed to an entirely cooldown-based system though I think I'll feel uncomfortable without some kind of mana.
you'll end all the fights with magic misseling the last enemy to death to get back SP.
I think this is worth talking about though. Firstly can we acknowledge that victory delaying behavior only exists because we don't heal to full between battles? Good. Now let's take any other game where you don't heal to full between battles. Those are quite many! Well, what do you do there if you want to recover before your next fight? Sometimes you get increased regeneration just for not being "in combat", some have items you can use only outside combat which significantly boost regen, some allow you to rest outside of combat. The common denominator is that being outside of combat helps you regen somehow. But that's boring! We want to launch ourselves at the next battle ASAP. Still, that battle will probably go better if we recover fully. It's up to the player's judgment.
Since we have decided all passive regen, regen abilities etc etc will mysteriously cease working the moment nobody within close proximity wants to kick our asses, there's no way for us to regen between battles... unless we want to pay at the tavern (which isn't always available anyway). So instead we - or at least I - regen inside the battle. And then my pace slows down like the guy who rests between fights. Delayed victories are pretty much SotW's version of regen - provided you have some regen. The conclusion of this elaboration is, that as long as we have any type of replenishable resource, this behavior will continue to exist. And one good way of punishing such behavior would be to set a time limit (measured in ticks on the combat timer) before the quest is failed because we were too slow. And when that's not applicable... really, a lot of games let you do things more safely if you spend more time, so it's not philosophically wrong.
Still though, even if not used to counter delayed victories, I hope to see the possibility of timed quests
* Proc means Programmed Random Occurrence, the most common and basic of which is a critical hit.
If at first try it doesn't explode, it ain't Jack who wrote the code.
