[Ophion]

Equinox said:

Not if it's done right (not looking at Diablo here).

Essentially you choose spells depending on the situation and plan the input-output of mana accordingly...

And why can't this be made in another system?

[Equinox]

emilemil1 said:

And why can't this be made in another system?

For instance?

You can make it on any system you want, the question is, is it going to be easy enough to balance and is it not going to be helluva boring.

[Ophion]

As long as it is simple it is going to be relatively easy to balance.

I find mana to be "helluva boring" after using it in countless games for many many years, I want something new. Rage, or Fury, is not mana, it is based on your damage output and input, it is balanced, and it is not boring. Why not just transfer that system to the Wizard and remove the damage input?

[Equinox]

emilemil1 said:

As long as it is simple it is going to be relatively easy to balance.

I wouldn't call Fury simple. But it would work because Barb's basic raw non-spell damage is usually significantly high + barb can probably have a few free spells that don't require any mana/fury/w/e. It's kind of normal for barbs, they're less spell-oriented which is why I don't at all mind their mechanic. In fact, it makes a lot more sense than to force the barb to bother with regenerating stuff.

emilemil1 said:

I find mana to be "helluva boring" after using it in countless games for many many years, I want something new.

I am going to remind you that "mana" is just a name and has been implemented in countless games in many different ways (Sacrifice, heXen, Kult, for instance). Similarly, changing "mana" to "spirit" and not really adding any gameplay changes won't stop it from being mana.

Blizzard's management of mana recharge is what made it boring, not the mana itself. They limited it to potions, regen, and mana leech and that made it stupid, has nothing to do with the basic mechanic of mana recharge. Mana could have 0 recharge and still not be boring, it's a matter of outside mechanics also. They added orbs now, and that can change a lot. Getting orbs is essentially similar to getting ammo in FPS games, and I don't remember anyone in FPS games saying that ammo is boring.

emilemil1 said:

Rage, or Fury, is not mana, it is based on your damage output and input, it is balanced, and it is not boring. Why not just transfer that system to the Wizard and remove the damage input?

Maybe because it doesn't make much sense? Wizard is not barb, you can't just transfer the mechanic over and expect it magically to work. First of all, why copy the barb? If you do insist on giving a different mechanic to each class, bother to make it truly different. Second of all, how's the basic spell going to be cast, the wizard can't just whack someone on the head with a stick. 0-cost spells or something? This means the wizard has a starter period of not casting anything too useful, while they also do not have protection, do not have health, do not have high basic damage, do not, really, have anything that barb has until they start casting if the term "glass cannon" was used properly. Yes, they can probably kill fallens but what if you're in a situation where you're meeting some really big enemies or you ran out of mana on accident while fighting a boss? And, if they do it right this time around, he'll just kill you now?

If wizard doesn't lose mana over time then we go in the opposite direction, they're gaining an advantage over other classes (barb included) because they essentially have a sped up regen without any penalties (need to put themselves in nasty situations, keep fighting, etc.). Not to mention that the wizard is generally ranged. A barb suffers from not fighting, which counterbalances the fast increase of fury from fighting. Wizard? They can easily keep that supply of mana high if they just keep casting free spells, and free-spell-spam is not uncommon in games that permit it. They usually can't be completely useless since you need to let the wizard recharge somehow. I could see already them becoming the main spell a wizard uses all the time. I could also see it getting boring really fast. Cast ray of frost 10x times then cast blizzard then cast ray of frost 10x times than cast blizzard again and so on. Cast ray of frost [assume this is a 0-cost spell) at all times that you don't need to cast anything better, and keep a constant supply of protective spells from little weak monsters. It's not a fun mechanic and never was. Essentially you just cast these free spells all the time while otherwise not changing your behavior at all. You'd usually cast storm shield-blizzard-spectral blade now you'll cast rof-rof-rof-rof-storm-shield-rof-rof-rof-rof-rof-rof-blizzard-rof-rof-spectral blade. Seen this before. Yay for variety. Except now you don't need to run to orbs, don't need to drink potions, nor wait. Which makes it OP automatically.

You don't want to put yourself into a trap with mana management, and damage-based mana recharge for a caster is just that kind of trap. It's probably balanceable but that's not going to happen.

[Ophion]

I didn't read all of that, but I'm going to suggest a system and let you critizise it :)

Quote

how's the basic spell going to be cast, the wizard can't just whack someone on the head with a stick. 0-cost spells or something?

There is a default regeneration, like with mana, that makes sure you never start a battle without any energy. It would work like the grace period of Fury, but reversed. You regenerate when you are outside of combat (not dealing damage) and stops regenerating when you attack.

There is no "basic" spell as it changes with your build and skill selection. A skill might cost you energy in level 1, but give you energy in level 5 with a certain rune. You can choose to play balanced and use a basic spell that deals moderate damage but drains/gives very little energy. Or you could use one weak spell with a high energy gain, together with a high power/high draining spell. You could focus your build on a large energy pool, or a higher energy regeneration, or a better energy gain, or more damage, or whatever.

Quote

A barb suffers from not fighting, which counterbalances the fast increase of fury from fighting. Wizard? They can easily keep that supply of mana high if they just keep casting free spells, and free-spell-spam is not uncommon in games that permit it.

Correct. You can continously cast completely free spells, but that is no different from many low cost spells in a mana system.

Quote

They usually can't be completely useless since you need to let the wizard recharge somehow. I could see already them becoming the main spell a wizard uses all the time. I could also see it getting boring really fast. Cast ray of frost 10x times then cast blizzard then cast ray of frost 10x times than cast blizzard again and so on.

Imaginary example of Barbarian gameplay:

1. You use the skill that gives a little fury boost and charge into battle.
2. You use some low fury cost skills to build up fury.
3. You use your most powerful AOE skill or your most powerful single target spell. You will regenerate fury for as long as you do enough damage.

Not much more to that, pretty repetitive. You start out weak and quickly build up to a continous high damage output.

Witch Doctor gameplay:

1. You summon your minions.
2. You cast support spells.
3. You start spamming damage spells.

Also pretty repetitive. Your damage stays stable over the whole fight as long as your mana is high.

Wizard gameplay:

1. You start by using your most devastating spells.
2. You use weaker spells that regenerates mana to build it up again, or more stable spells.
3. You use devastating spells again or stay with the more balanced spells.

Also repetitive. You start with very high damage and switch to either stable spells or more varied damage output. But there is one difference from the Barbarian/WD: The Wizard must run because it has no tanking capabilities. This opens up the field for slowing and debuffing spells like the slowing bubble. It might not be able to just stay and do the repetitive weak, weak, weak, strong spellcasting. It might have to replace some of those weak and strong spells with spells that aren't intended for damage.

The ideal fight would start out with some spells that drop the energy to around 50/100. You would then use varied single target/AOE spells to stay at around 50/100. A bit like the Monk; in cycles of 3 spells in a combo.

I think this would work fine and be pretty varied. You can't just use spells and estimate how long it is going to take until your mana pool is empty, and then you are screwed. You have to come up with good combinations of spells that keeps your mana balanced. You can't just go with 100% devastating power spells without having some less powerful spells for your left mouse button.

[dorgeismydog]

Thats the thing. We wont know whats going to happen untill it is revealed, all we have is speculation, and its different person-to-person. Blizzard is known for doing one of two things. One: Making us all fell stupid when that aspects final outlook is revealed, because we dont know why we didnt get it, it was so easy, or Two: making it the least thing most expected as a whole, no matter how crazy or wierd, the last thing we expected.

[Ophion]

Probably... We should all face fact; the Wizard will use electricity.

That is what the off-hand orb is for. It is a portable nuclear generator!

[Turmobil]

I gotta agree with emil, sounds pretty awesome when you think about it :D

[Equinox]

@emilemil1
Well, I wrote a huge post again so I deleted it and I'm just going to write this: :P

There are two things that most pure casters seem to have in common:

1. A standard caster has a big pool of mana, and after they cast it out they need to recharge it either by waiting, drinking potions, approaching mana crystals, killing themselves, killing their minions, killing their enemies (globes), or picking up mana ammo.

2. A standard caster is also super weak and requires some combination of the following to survive: magic shields (stoneskin), minions (WD), counterspells (end another's spell or cast it back), space control spells (slow time), crowd control spells (slow), self-improvement spells (haste).

The wizard seems to be OK with 2 since if we look at blizzcon data I believe the wizard has tons of protective stuff. I am also going to assume they will need it since it's there. But, when we take your idea, it doesn't fit 1 at all. The closest requirement your wizard has to mana recharge is killing enemies except it's already on top of the preexisting mana globes and can be acquired remotely rather than actually approaching and picking up the mana globes.

So what we have is a barb that constnatly needs to put himself in danger and a WD who needs to pick up the globes and hope his minions won't die on him when he's out of mana like it sometimes happened to necro. Then we have a wizard that can just recharge mana by casting spells. Fine, they may have a slower regen but I'm sure their mana gain from casting will be greater than WD's default regen.
That feels very OP to me. Essentially, a basic wizard does not need to do anything endangering to gain mana compared to the other classes. They have the advantage of the "infinite ranged" archetype that was actually true for the D1 rogue which could, well, kill everything while the durability lasted, and was the class that could beat the game while starting in nightmare even tho it was not really viable with warrior due to health issues or sorc due to mana issues.
You can take this wizard, remove mana, and replace everything with cooldowns. You'll get pretty much the same thing. So you'll just be casting the no-cooldown spell while the other spells cool down, and casting one spell will affect the cooldowns on all others.

What scares me more is that I could still see Blizzard implement this and crack their heads over trying to balance the unbalanceable.

[Omnicia]

pwnsickle said:

I would really be happy with the Wizard for D3 if it used not only its strong spells, but used its weaker spells as well in order to build up to the higher ones.

For example, the lowest rank spells don't cost any "energy" at all. Using them on a monster actually makes you generate some "energy". The next level up of spells could make you generate some energy, but not nearly as much. Assuming there is a fourth rank, that takes a way a little bit of "energy". And the highest ranking of spells takes away a lot of energy.

Just a really simple idea, I have no idea what it would be called or if it would work that well.

Comment on what you think of it :)

to the OP, as of the most recent interview with Jay Wilson, I do not think this will be the case. it sounds like blizzard wants to emphasize quick release of power with vulnerability following.

I would suggest that the system might be something like Tribes. remember if you had an energy based weapon, and you used all of your energy you would be unable to fly (or use a shield pack) until your energy was restored.

or perhaps another more recent game to compare it to would be world of warcraft. I am guessing that wizards will use an energy system *sort of* like a rogue for their defensive and offensive abilities. perhaps their defensive abilities will passively use energy (i.e. a talent where x% of damage is nullified or w/e for however much energy you currently have... but no energy is actually consumed, so i guess it's not really using energy, it's just monitoring it) and offensive abilities will actively use energy (spell costs X amount of energy). energy is restored quickly over time - not by kills or anything.

this way if you are full on energy, you aren't killing anything, but you have stronger defenses. if you are empty on energy, you are killing stuff, but your defenses are lessened in proportion to how quickly you are killing things.

what do you guys think?

[dorgeismydog]

Theres just alot of different possibilities, and its looking like the waitng to recharge is out, blizz wants us to stay in action. There so many ways it could be taken, and nothings for sure untill its further developed.

[pwnsickle]

When I first posted this thread, I didn't think to add this in-

As someone said, the barbarian's fury goes down to zero after a few seconds of not being in combat. I was thinking that for the wizard, it should slowly regenerate to or decrease to to the middle of a bar. Using higher level skills would decrease the meter of the bar, using lower ones would bring up the meter.

This could also implement in the "overheating" idea in two ways.

If she "overheats" by trying to use too many high ranked spells where she doesn't have enough fuel, her health starts to go down in proportion to how much she is casting, unless she is using low rank spells that will generate fuel.

If you keep saving up the wizards fuel and it's all the way at the top because you are spamming a level one spell, she will underheat for not using her potential energy she knows she can release, you could start losing health.

[Jeru5]

Good idea! I have never thought about this. It really gives a reason to use them on higher levels

[Ophion]

Another option is that the resource cost of higher level spells are reduced when you cast low level spells. So when you have fired 3 low level spells you can cast one high level for free, or 2 for free after 6 low level spells. The resource meter could be split in half with the primary resource on one side, and charge resource on the other. 100% charged resource = 100% cost reduction for a high level skill, 75% charged for 75% cost reduction and so on.

You could just spam high level skills, it will deal more damage, but it will drain your mana really fast and leave you vulnerable. Or you could be economic and fully charge with low level skills all the time, which would equal lower DPS but you will never run out of resources.

[rockstar]

When I read the quote about the volatility of the wizard's resource, I immediately thought of 'ether,' which if I'm not mistaken was used to restore mana in final fantasy. Of course the volatile ether is really just an organic solvent that is also used as an anesthetic, and I think the final fantasy ether was more like aether, or some kinda fifth element with mystical properties or something, so really two different ethers.

At any rate, I think blizzard's goal is that the wizard will never have to stop casting spells and run away from the battle and wait for his/her mana to regen. Since they also want the wizard to be a 'glass cannon,' I was imagining a system where casting spells would somehow lower your defenses or make you more vulnerable. Obviously though, at some point you'd either reach a point where your defense doesn't drop any further, or the damage you take is amplified by so much that any monster can kill you in a single blow.

I like the idea presented in the original post much better! You never have to stop casting spells, and there will be some balance between weaker spells and more powerful spells to even things out. Cool ideas!

[luc1027]

What I understand is wizard will be able to cast quickly fast without break. But more he cast more he's vulnerable. I have two ideas :
life will be the energy but it can't go under 1 hp

or

some thing like energy armor, when he don't cast, energy armor protect wizard but when he casting he's vulerable to be hit and he don't have too much of life.

[3CXOD]

I think his mana should be white.
Not a milky white but a glistening white.

I don't know why, but it just sounds right to me.

[Turmobil]

I don't like that idea... Would be to irresistible to joke about.

[necronergal]

it could be cool, that the wizard has mana, but if your mana runs out you can use 25% of your life to cast spells. leaving you with 3/4 health left.

[Ophion]

Perhaps a default mana shield that is drained the more mana-hungry spells you cast.