Active blocking? Sure, but not like that

Showing systems in their alpha state to get this kind of feedback is the point of these streams. So yes, they should in fact show what they have right now. And as Steven mentioned, they're planning to at least test a stamina/mana system.

They should've obviously decided this fucking years ago during the designing stage and we should've already been giving feedback on the minute details, but it is what it is.

I would personally prefer a mana-based system because it would make mana-based gameplay deeper and related to all archetypes.

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I want a pvp game where I can counter play my enemy and they can counter play me. I want every archetype to have a mana control ability of some sort (i.e. mana vamp, mana conversion, mana drain, mana burn, etc etc etc). I want mobs to have the same and use it often.

I understand that a lot of people seem to hate when the opponent can influence their gameplay, but isn't that the fucking point of a good pvp game? Play and counterplay? To me a stamina or "every class with their own resource" system seems anti-pvp. I'm sure it's amazing in pve because it lets the player come up with proper rotations and resource management, but I want more interactions rather than one-sided gameplay.

And if every class had a counterplay to every other class' resource or just additional abilities for stamina gameplay - that would increase ability bloat (especially so in the case of the former).

Though I guess Intrepid could only give mana play to a specific archetype or two and then stamina play to another set of archetypes and maybe even special resource counterplay to yet another set of archetypes. Which would push people to have the "one of each" party setup. I'd be fine with that design, but I don't think we've heard any indication of this direction in the development.

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Except L2 only had mana. And we already had mana-based sprinting in alpha1, so it's not like Ashes is too far from something like that.

It's the same principle in both cases. You think your destination might have enemies? Prepare for it instead of wasting your resources beforehand.

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I guess I just disagree with that kind of design. I'll live if the game decides to go with more stamina-based mechanics or even special resources, but I'd just prefer a universal system that has way more depth of interactions.

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Easily explained by "essence gives you power". Everyone uses essence and essence is used in different ways. You have a hugeass plate armor and want to run? Use essence to boost your muscles.

You're wearing a super light armor and already have a dexterous build? You obviously use less essence and can run for way longer.

You're a fucking mage who've barely even walked in their whole life? Use essence to run, but you obviously use more than a ranger (maybe similar to a plate tank rate).

Same can apply to strength usages. It's a magic world where everyone uses the world's magic. You can come up with whatever you want in-lore. Obviously you (and a lot of people) dislike the mechanic itself, but it's not like it couldn't be implemented while still being logical in-game.

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This is why I want the whole system to be deeper than just "you have stamina. It has a certain rate of burnthrough. You have a certain regen rate".

The weapon passives could have branches and augments that relate to mana. Shield blocking could have a branch of "make a perfect block and lose less mana per dmg point" or a "holding the block decreases mana/point values with each second". The first would be for those with good reactions, while the second could work perfectly for more casual people, but they'd obviously have to sacrifice ability usage while holding the block.

An augment could provide a mana stealing passive on blocking magic attacks, but lesser dmg mitigation of anything physical. And I'm sure there's a ton of other such mechanics possible.

It's just that I want this kind of gameplay to be linked to other archetypes, rather than being purely single player centric. But like I said, if Intrepid can design a stamina or a special resource system that has counterplay across different archetypes - I'd be fine with that.

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Yep.

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Most of the time I promote restrictive gameplay that is directly linked to already existing designs, so that the design becomes deeper instead of broader and shallower.

I also don't want Intrepid to keep balancing several resource pools, one of which might even be completely separated from anything else in the game. Like I keep saying, I want people to influence each other. Keeping systems restricted allows for better balancing for those influences. And it allows to not have 50 abilities that account for any potential interactions with resources.

I know that most people don't want other players to influence their gameplay. I just disagree with that. Simple as that.

NiKr wrote: »

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Most of the time I promote restrictive gameplay that is directly linked to already existing designs, so that the design becomes deeper instead of broader and shallower.

I also don't want Intrepid to keep balancing several resource pools, one of which might even be completely separated from anything else in the game. Like I keep saying, I want people to influence each other. Keeping systems restricted allows for better balancing for those influences. And it allows to not have 50 abilities that account for any potential interactions with resources.

I know that most people don't want other players to influence their gameplay. I just disagree with that. Simple as that.

Siding with Neurath here, very precisely in fact.

I don't want every class having their own special resource. I don't want this for every Archetype. I was surprised that Tanks even had one until I grasped the gameplay type that might be the aim.

But Stamina + Mana as two different things is not restrictive in a way that I perceive helps gameplay. All classes can active block, sprint, etc. All should probably have a reason, at some point, to do so. Therefore having both will only create depth, and in fact, not having it has a chance to reduce it.

That's just my experience, and therefore my feedback.

Azherae wrote: »

But Stamina + Mana as two different things is not restrictive in a way that I perceive helps gameplay. All classes can active block, sprint, etc. All should probably have a reason, at some point, to do so. Therefore having both will only create depth, and in fact, not having it has a chance to reduce it.

That's just my experience, and therefore my feedback.

You know my experience is super limited. Are there games that have in-depth player to player (or even pve) interactions with the stamina system? Obviously outside of the obvious "they're about to hit you so you spend stamina to block or dodge".

I'd imagine there might be at least a few or just those that have this kind of mechanic functionally. And I want that kind of depth in Ashes. It could come in the form of "some of your abilities also influence stamina" or it could come in the form of "you have some abilities that influence stamina". The former would probably lead to some balancing issues and the latter would lead to ability bloat.

And I say bloat because I also want deeper mana gameplay, so having both "mana" and "stamina" abilities would increase the 30-50 ability goal by quite a bit. One could say "well you'll have a choice between the two, so it's risk/reward" and, while that is true, everyone will also have both resources at all times, so by limiting yourself to interactions with just one of those resources - you're removing a part of gameplay from the game. This is why I think this design would also be restrictive.

And if you decide to have some minor interactions for both resources - your ability pool is super shallow, while also requiring you to switch between action bars because you simply can't fit it all on one.

I could see the addition of a stamina-like mechanic later on through some in-lore finding of a new type of energy. This would allow Intrepid to add newer abilities, add a whole new system to the game with its own depth and maybe counterbalance some issues that came up during the mana-based era.

But in the end, as I've said before in other threads, I'd be totally fine if Intrepid is already planning to have deep interactions for both stamina and mana. Except the sheer fact of them not even fucking knowing whether they want stamina or not leads me to believe that it would be super shallow.

The general experience I have is that games use Stamina for the movement abiities of physical classes (and the base universal class movement abilities) and Mana/something else for the rest (with usually a longer cooldown on Mage teleports). This allows a tighter balance of mobility options, while allowing some extra flexibility to Mage kiting (your physical opponents will run out of stamina before you will, but don't need to figure out how to make a Mana build, and so on.

For various reasons, stamina is then used for Blocking too, because otherwise I am happy to tank with my large MP pool while another Cleric uses theirs to heal me, in any game that has build freedom enough for lines to be blurred somewhat.

A recent comment from a Dev in the latest showcase has made me think that they actually do intend to accept group flexibility, and therefore must now 'worry' about players choosing multiple of one Archetype, hence the note about that.

There are other approaches, obviously, I just don't personally like them. Having at least two levers for balance of such things is optimal for me, trying to balance things with just one leads to homogenization and issues that can be hard to foresee due to competing goals. Separating the resources should be done to avoid competing goals, and no more, which is why I don't think we need even more (Conviction and Courage have a 'different purpose' for example, they represent the 'time-gated ability', i.e. they're a TP gauge).

Azherae wrote: »

There are other approaches, obviously, I just don't personally like them. Having at least two levers for balance of such things is optimal for me, trying to balance things with just one leads to homogenization and issues that can be hard to foresee due to competing goals. Separating the resources should be done to avoid competing goals, and no more, which is why I don't think we need even more (Conviction and Courage have a 'different purpose' for example, they represent the 'time-gated ability', i.e. they're a TP gauge).

Would %-based usage of mana for movement/blocking lead to that homogenization or would it be the same as stamina, except with the ability of others to limit your movement/blocking?

We know that Ashes will at least somewhat rely on basic attacks, so it's not like any class will suddenly become absolutely useless w/o mana. And with a proper passives design you could have different balancing for different classes. From "physical classes have lowered rate of mana use below a certain threshold" to "magic classes getting mana regen boosts from movement when below a certain threshold" and anything in-between and outside of those designs.

Is that something that other games have tried and you disliked it or maybe they failed due to it? Cause you mentioned the basic uses of stamina but didn't note any interactions outside of that. Is it just another case of me preferring some dumb mechanic that's just not feasible in game design or is it smth that hasn't been tried before?

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

There are other approaches, obviously, I just don't personally like them. Having at least two levers for balance of such things is optimal for me, trying to balance things with just one leads to homogenization and issues that can be hard to foresee due to competing goals. Separating the resources should be done to avoid competing goals, and no more, which is why I don't think we need even more (Conviction and Courage have a 'different purpose' for example, they represent the 'time-gated ability', i.e. they're a TP gauge).

Would %-based usage of mana for movement/blocking lead to that homogenization or would it be the same as stamina, except with the ability of others to limit your movement/blocking?

We know that Ashes will at least somewhat rely on basic attacks, so it's not like any class will suddenly become absolutely useless w/o mana. And with a proper passives design you could have different balancing for different classes. From "physical classes have lowered rate of mana use below a certain threshold" to "magic classes getting mana regen boosts from movement when below a certain threshold" and anything in-between and outside of those designs.

Is that something that other games have tried and you disliked it or maybe they failed due to it? Cause you mentioned the basic uses of stamina but didn't note any interactions outside of that. Is it just another case of me preferring some dumb mechanic that's just not feasible in game design or is it smth that hasn't been tried before?

Moreso, it's much harder to achieve the same thing.

I'm moreso complaining because explicitly refusing to have just ONE more resource is a flawed concept. There are so many balance issues that come up from what players will think of, that you don't, as a designer, that it's ridiculous.

You're just risking a borderline unfixable meta for no reason. Now, before, I would have gone 'Maybe Intrepid will prove me wrong, maybe they have a good plan for how this will work'.

I hope even they can consider it fair that my perspective has changed to 'they don't really have a clear idea what they are doing with it either'. I wouldn't want to risk leaving mana-only balance to people who are already working this hard but have the issues they've implied they have.

Game design is always hard because 'disproving' that an idea will work requires such exhaustive testing. You're 'testing until someone breaks it', but sometimes it takes years to break it, but you find yourself at the point where it's unfixable without breaking everything else.

This is why we end up with conventions. It's fine if you devote a lot of time on a new game, from the very beginning, to 'ok, how can I really break down this convention', but I don't have a lot of faith in 'starting midway', from anyone .

To actually answer the specifics properly:

Games with stamina but no mana lead to the 'problem' where enemies are slow. If you're expected to use your stamina to react, but also to attack, you spend a lot of time on the defensive and the enemies must generally be slower to account for this.

Games with Mana but no Stamina tend to need to limit mana builds or create certain tradeoffs AGAINST mana which are not only unrealistic but often unfun, and people just minmax the hell out of them anyway. It's literally 'the mage class also has the most mobility/defenses'. These games are uncommon for most people to know about because they are almost laughably bad and people ignore them.

Percentage based blocking is fun for the OTHER dumb reason that min-maxers like me 'love'.

If you put Mana Transfer and Mana Regeneration in the same game and then make my mana usage for blocking percentage based, I will laugh all the way to the bank.

EDIT: I'm not actually objecting to this, Intrepid, I would be honored to be my group's tank/offtank as a Shadow Disciple in Ashes.

Azherae wrote: »

Games with Mana but no Stamina tend to need to limit mana builds or create certain tradeoffs AGAINST mana which are not only unrealistic but often unfun, and people just minmax the hell out of them anyway. It's literally 'the mage class also has the most mobility/defenses'. These games are uncommon for most people to know about because they are almost laughably bad and people ignore them.

So I think my line of thinking falls under this even if Ashes has both. I want people to be able to influence other people's gameplay. And people seem to hate that quite a lot. In other words, I'm way too niche to succeed with my designs