Which mana redesign do you prefer?

[x4000]

A couple of notes while I continue to mull:

1. I was definitely planning on ammo being tier-less, for all the reasons mentioned above.

2. If you want a good idea of the sort of general spread of rarity of ammo types, games like Half Life 2 or Unreal Tournament are mostly what I was thinking of.

3. The hybrid idea above was my favorite last night as well, cool to see that overall folks were thinking along the same lines.  Though, like a lot of folks, I think that the final implementation needs some tuning there.

4. When it comes to cast times, I think that can be really interesting but also really annoying.  The crests will allow you to charge up spells for extra power, though, so I think that whole range of options is pretty well already covered by when you choose to customize your spells with crests and a charge augment gem.  Not that that's in the playable builds of the game yet, but I think that works better as an extra option through crests rather than as part of the base mechanics.

5. Having just three bars, with a neutral point between two elements, is something I'd considered a bit last night but it still would take up a lot of space on the screen and might be kind of confusing.  And in terms of changing the overall nature of spells at different temperatures or whatever, that's kind of interesting in some ways, but honestly I think I'd rather just make those as separate spells so that players can plan in advance rather than having to really work the combo system in a heavy way to get certain spells.  I've been thinking of any combo system as mostly being about DPS and cooldown times and other mathy things like that.  Having a lot of extra bars on the screen just... feels wrong, to me, in a lot of ways.  In others it's attractive, but it feels a lot more like a fighting game than the sort of game I'm going for at core here.

6. It's a good point on Indiana Jones not going to some temple to get a health kit.  Then again, in a zombie movie they do go to a mall to get food and things of that nature.  Dawn of the Dead, etc.  In this game you're party Indy and part Survivor.  That said, one thing I'm mulling is if I should just take out the Outfitter crafting workbench as well (there's hardly anything there) and make it so that you scavenge for things like snowsuits, etc.  Those would be a lot more interesting and convincing of rewards, and when it comes to (say) wooden platforms, players are already getting those primarily from exploration rather than crafting.  That would get us down to one main kind of crafting workbench, which I think would be a really positive change for new players (then later, as they get higher level, they start running into the crestsmith and the spellshaping gems).

7. Regarding ammo... this is making me think of some other things in other threads (the one about warp mechanics in particular), and some of my past work in my unreleased game Alden Ridge.  Specifically, that hoarding and collecting ammo are both problems.  And being able to leave a mission, get more SUPER AMMO and come back is also a problem.  Will comment more in the other thread about the more general thoughts attached to this, but as regarding ammo my thought is: why not make it so that certain events in the game will give you back to "full stock" of each ammo type, but that that's the ONLY way to get the ammo of those types.  Going back to town would be the obvious candidate, but that's really broken in and of itself. 

Rather, my thought is that as the mission system is implemented where you have two missions to choose from, and completing one of them clears both of them and adds two new missions to choose from... that's the line in the sand right there.  Each mission would give you a stock of ammo at the end for your major weapons, and you'd not get refreshed on that until you ended the next mission.  So you could use that ammo on side quests or on the next mission or whatever, but you still only have so much of it and then it's gone.  Which would be fine under the hybrid model since 80% of spells wouldn't use ammo at all anyhow, and it would really amp up the survival aspect of the game a bit, which is watered-down at the moment.  Actually, thinking about the permadeath thread, you could even lose all your ammo when your character dies, which means that you then have to do without your super-weapons until you complete the next mission, which would be really interesting.  On the lowest two difficulties that could be skipped, but for the top three action difficulties that seems like an interesting thing.



Will take some more mulling, then I'll probably write up a more detailed design for what I'm actually planning, with all the little changes and additions based on this thread.  There are a few other related things I'm also thinking about and might write up, as I think that all of this should tie together cohesively (of course), and that's a lot to mentally juggle.  But I really like where these threads are heading.  Thanks for all the thoughts, folks, it's been a huge help and really enlightening.

[TNSe]

Have you considered taking on a Magika type crafting system?

Earth - High damage
Air - Knockback
Water - Slowing effect
Fire - Damage over time
Light - Fast (Instant?)
Entropy - Increased damage taken

Earth and Air, Water and Fire, Light and Entropy are opposites and cannot be mixed.

Otherwise you could mix Earth with Fire to get a Meteor, mix Air and Light to get an instant pushback, etc.
And then mix Earth, Fire and Light to get an instant hit Meteor.
Then mix in other things like Copper, Wood, Quartz, Iron, Moonstone etc.  to get additional sideeffects.

Would give you a consistant spell system with a lot of configurability.

(And then add on the "Heat Effect" suggested above)

[x4000]

Have you considered taking on a Magika type crafting system?

Yep, considered it because it does have certain attractions, but at the same time there's a lot I really don't like about it.  Not wanting to go that direction at all, really.  You wind up with only some formulas being really valid to use, and the ability for the game to have a lot of creative spell variety that the developer adds in goes down a lot, and balance problems really increase a lot, and it can't work as well with an elemental damage system, etc, etc.

There are counterpoints to all of the above, of course, but then those require still further changes to the whole premise of the game, and pretty soon you've got a Magicka clone instead of AVWW, heh.  There's a reason they made a lot of the design decisions they did, and I don't think their system of crafting spells would work as well without most of their general game design.  Same as the AI War AI wouldn't work as well without most of the rest of the game design that AI War has.

[TNSe]

I would suggest giving the special commodities some ability to interact with spell crafting still.

Wood - minor damage boost and minor cost boost
Granite - minor damage decrease and minor cost decrease
Quartz - minor cost decrease
Iron - minor damage increase

etc.

This would not be an one is answer to all situation, considering each Character will have different magic power and different magic capacity. With a low magic capacity (700 mana) but high Magic Power (1100+) I might want to lower the cost, and with reverse, I might want to increase the cost.

[Penumbra]

Just some feedback on the bars in general. There are 4 bars right now, and I only actually care about 2 of them. I need to know what my life and mana are. I find the xp interesting sometimes, and the "what difficulty zone" bar is useful once. Giving all 4 bars equal UI real estate is a little unfair.

In almost all ARPGs since Diablo came out, life and mana have been large orbs at the bottom corners of the screen. Not to say in AVWW they should be orbs, but giving them emphasis would be nice. XP and difficulty could be little bars somewhere, or even relegated to another screen.
 
This would allow the health and mana displays to show more complex information, if necessary. I am far from a graphic artist, but 3 stacked bars of different colors could show the different heat levels clearly, if made larger.

As for using the combo system to "make new spells" I understand that would be counter to the game play, making it more a fighting game. Those differences could just be cosmetic, but would mostly be DPS changes. 

(I'm going to go off topic here, fair warning)

I find the combo system that is coming to be very compelling, but will require its own UI elements to display them, which is why I keep bringing up this hybrid system of showing both in one.  I also like its interaction with the weather.  The "extreme heat" of the lava flats and "extreme cold" of the ice age could raise those bars constantly instead of moving the neutral points. The heat or cold damage caused by those zones could be caused by them filling up and, maybe this is crazy, but casting lots of ice spells in the lava flats could keep you cool.

In fact, what if any of the three bars caused health damage if they over filled. Then you could use your health to cast more spells.

[x4000]

TNSe -- Customizing spells as you craft them really isn't something we plan to ever do.  That's more or less the whole point of crests, where you can take a spell and then customize it much more heavily than what you're actually suggesting.

Penumbra -- It's true on the four bars thing, and the EXP bar is probably going to be removed for various other reasons in addition to this one.  The danger bar is actually pretty important in that players don't always realize when they go down a level into the underground that the level goes up, etc.  But basically we'd be down to health (which would be bigger and more complex with some sort of secondary capsules or otherwise, not yet decided on that yet), the combo stuff most likely, probably the overall recharging-mana bar thing, and then the danger level which might just become a number instead of a bar to make sure that it's less emphasized compared to now.

[Dizzard]

I have an idea I was thinking about today, it's similar to Penumbra's idea but with one major difference.

I'll post it here soon. I want to make a paint image to get my idea across better.

Edit: Ok here's my idea...

Have six types of mana (one for each element). However there would be only 3 bars. Fire & Water, Air & Earth, Light & Entropy would share bars. Each bar would have an overall "Mana points" value that would be shared between the two elements.



By using spells that are associated with a certain element. The mana for that element goes down while the mana for it's opposing element goes up. So if you use loads of Fire spells you'll end up with a small amount of Fire mana but an abundance of Water Mana. In the example below, the player has been going overboard with the Light spells so their Entropy Mana has become massive. (which might even be necessary for the stronger spells)



This is where it becomes a little different from Penumbra's idea. It's a bit like an addition I guess. Over time a Spiritual/Chi Limiter would appear (in other words two blocks would appear to the left and right of the three mana bars). As time moves on these blocks move closer and closer together freezing/locking the mana it covers. You can't use mana that has been frozen/locked.

NOTE: Just to note, this limiter isn't moving at lightning speed. It's extremely slow.



The further the limiters move towards each other, the less mana you have that you can use. Not only that but it becomes more difficult to balance your mana as the reduced space means mana can fall out of scope more easily. For example below the player has no way of using the Light mana they have left and are almost about to lose the little piece of Earth mana still in scope.



If you leave it too long (and by long I mean "looooooooong" this isn't a 30 second thing) your entire mana will become locked and you will need to take steps to unlock it. I'm thinking being in the precence of an illari stone would completely unlock the mana bars for use again. Plus there would be a grace period after you use an illari stone...so the countdown won't begin as soon as you move away from the stone. I'm imagining this as something that would mean you could go out on adventures and not have to worry too much...but at the same time you wouldn't be able to stay in the wilderness indefinitely.



The way I figure this feature is that it was the Illari stones that gave people the ability to use magic right? So by spending time outside the illari's influence your magic (or chi) centre begins to fade and it becomes more difficult to stay in control of your magic.

You could add other ideas to this too....like being in the precence of evil illari (in the deep) could cause the limiter to move back and forth erratically. Certain groups of characters could have limiters that move even slower (like those funky haired people who come from the era of magic)

Some characters could have different mana defaults so the mana bars could be skewed in favour of certain elements right from the start. (for example the neutral skelebots could by default have more fire mana than water mana and so would find it easier to quickly make use of fire spells but struggle with water based spells) While those from the bronze age by default may have an abundance of earth mana but very little air mana. (the air mana could still be built up though by using the earth mana)

Just to clarify, the limiter isn't something that would have you heading back to your settlement every 10 minutes. It would move very very slowly but would mean that you would need to head home eventually to charge under the Illari's influence. The limiter sort of counter-acts the pretty much endless supply of mana that you have. So there's still something that will eventually hold you back.

(NOTE: Fire, Air and Light mana would enter and exit at the left of their bars while Water, Earth and Entropy mana would enter and exit at the right of their bars.

[x4000]

One of my big goals for the core mana system is that it not take a lot of explaining to get across to new players: elegant simplicity is the name of the game as much as possible.  For the most part they should just be able to look at it and have it make sense intuitively, with a few relatively unimportant questions that they can get extra info on through tooltips or the intro mission or whatever else.  For instance, it's not important that they know how to min/max the combo system right at the start, whatever the combo system is.

Later into the game, more complex and interesting layers can be added once players have mastered the basics.  That's kind of the idea behind crests, is that it lets you have access to this whole other layer of spell customization that doesn't exist until then.  Before that point you're just learning what all the various spells do at their defaults, and how to best make use of them before you start customizing them.

Same sort of deal with the hybrid recharge/ammo system.  Ammo would only be for the super spells, which you wouldn't see at first anyhow, so early in the game it seems like it's just a recharge system and that's it.  By the time time you have your first spell that requires any form of ammo, you're well versed in the simpler layers of the spell system and actually looking for more complexity.

Now, in all fairness we could make a more elemental mana system like you describe be something that is introduced later, as some sort of option in place of the base combo system.  So for someone who wants to use that other sort of system, maybe there's a special enchant they apply to themselves, or maybe all the robot characters use that kind of recharge rather than the normal kind, or maybe there's some other way in which you can swap out how the basic mechanics work.

Having multiple potential combo systems of varying degrees of complexity that players can customize their characters with could be interesting, actually.  So this would make a good mantis suggestion so that we don't forget about it, for instance, when we're hitting that stage later.  For now I really want to nail down a core mechanic that is introduced more from the start of the game, though, and that one needs to be elegantly simple in some form.

[FallingStar]

Might be a bit late on the discussion, but after thinking with the ammo system or the hybrid, I stuck a vote on pure ammo system.

I guess based on two primary reasons.  First, the interesting bit to me is what the player does when they're low on ammo/charge.  In anything with recharge you're most rewarded for standing still/ waiting/ hiding.  For pure ammo systems you're forced to go find a stash/ go somewhere, and while doing it either use your better charges and be less efficient or dodge.  To me it feels like having the recharge in there would cause even more hoarding vs using the high level charges (especially if untiered) . . and recharging systems only really feel interesting in games like Diablo or Terraria where you're being absolutely mobbed, and can't find a place to easily recharge.  If AVWW is going in that direction, I can definitely see it, but as is there's not too many instances right now where I'd run out of charge and find an interesting dynamic of finding it difficult to recharge, so I don't see the tense moments that offset the waiting around dynamic.

Second the hybrid just feels a bit complex for what it does mechanically.  If the hybrid system goes forth I don't know if I see too many differences with what the game has now, but just making mana recharge, and the powerful spells into one use scrolls that are hard to find, with long recharges.

Haven't read enough about the proposed combo systems in this thread to really have a thought on that yet, wanted to get out my vote.


Edit: The mission based high level charge system sounds interesting, just so long as me running out of mana is interesting or spells are balanced such that I need to consider what I'm using.  Some strategy other than spam XYZ and then hide somewhere for a few seconds being the mose efficent path. 

[Hearteater]

Just to somewhat echo FallingStar, I prefer more ammo spells.  I voted hybrid, but I think I'd prefer if 50-80% of spells used ammo.  We should really have to start getting creative when we run out of ammo.  The common spells should have easy to get ammo, possibly a large amount coming just from returning to a settlement.  I think if my only concern for being low on ammo is, "better not boss fight right now" then it isn't really all that much of an issue.  I'll stock up my ammo between bosses, and blow it without regard during them.

[tigersfan]

Might be a bit late on the discussion, but after thinking with the ammo system or the hybrid, I stuck a vote on pure ammo system.

I guess based on two primary reasons.  First, the interesting bit to me is what the player does when they're low on ammo/charge.  In anything with recharge you're most rewarded for standing still/ waiting/ hiding.  For pure ammo systems you're forced to go find a stash/ go somewhere, and while doing it either use your better charges and be less efficient or dodge.  To me it feels like having the recharge in there would cause even more hoarding vs using the high level charges (especially if untiered) . . and recharging systems only really feel interesting in games like Diablo or Terraria where you're being absolutely mobbed, and can't find a place to easily recharge.  If AVWW is going in that direction, I can definitely see it, but as is there's not too many instances right now where I'd run out of charge and find an interesting dynamic of finding it difficult to recharge, so I don't see the tense moments that offset the waiting around dynamic.

...

Edit: The mission based high level charge system sounds interesting, just so long as me running out of mana is interesting or spells are balanced such that I need to consider what I'm using.  Some strategy other than spam XYZ and then hide somewhere for a few seconds being the mose efficent path.

I voted for ammo to, mostly because it "felt" more fun, but I couldn't say why. You have, I believe, hit the nail on the head. I like the idea of having to make tactical/strategic decisions both before I do something (do I have enough ammo to take out this boss?), and during the action.

[x4000]

I like the idea of having to make tactical/strategic decisions both before I do something (do I have enough ammo to take out this boss?), and during the action.

These are good points in the last three posts, summed up in the above.

On the flip side, I think that the reason the hybrid approach is best is that for the low-level spells in particular it is NEVER fun to be completely out of ammo.  I think that's why a lot of FPS games give you unlimited pistol shots along with the standard unlimited melee attacks now.  Getting down to just your crowbar is never fun, but getting down to just your pistol can be fun because you get to practice your headshotting.

I think the actual balance of ammo vs recharging spells will need to be figured out through playtesting, but it shouldn't be too big a deal to switch a lot of them back and forth.

And I'm really thinking that weakspots on enemies are going to need to be a thing.

[tigersfan]

Fair point on the running completely out of ammo being unfun. But, to continue your analogy, there is a reason that you get unlimited ammo on ONLY the lowest guns. I guess what I'm saying is that while I can see why you want a hybrid system, I'd prefer more ammo and less cooldown. But, playtesting is probably the best way to find out exactly where that line should be.

[x4000]

That's a fair point, but here you've got many more kinds of "guns" compared to an FPS, so they are somewhat dissimilar just from that.  How much a factor that would be I'm not sure, but fire touch is basically your crowbar and then all the lowest-level ranged spells are basically your pistol, I think.  There have to be at least six "basic pistols" since any given enemy could be immune to 5 out of the 6 elements.  And then really a lot of the current spells have the same basic DPS but trade that for being able to hit multiple targets slowly in a line, or one target with splash damage, etc, etc. 

Really most of the spells at the moment tend to fall in the same basic "weight class" so to speak, but their usages differ.  My current goal is for players to be able to express some degree of personality by choosing from spells with the same element and the same general DPS but with really different usage characteristics (like how a lot of the basic weapons are in many FPS games), and then have this whole other class of spells that are fancier in some way and thus need ammo.

But the idea needs playtesting, for sure.

[tigersfan]

Oh, definitely need at least one ammo-less spell for each element, total agreement there. Maybe it's a question of there just not being enough spells in the game yet. Maybe if all the spells we have now plus a couple others in this "weight class" were ammo-less, but there were 3 or 4 times more spells that used ammo, we'd get the effect I am thinking about.

More specific feedback to come after you send me that e-mail to test the first ammo-driven spells. :-)