Limited spells and limited mana should be removed from games.

Brainy

I like playing healers and ranged casters in games.  I was reading a recent review of a game (broken ranks) where they said casters have a limited amount of mana to beat the boss before it runs out.  This turns me off the game completely.  I ask myself why do so many games have it where melee classes can use an unlimited amount of attacks all fight, but casters have either a limited number of spells, or have to manage mana and switch to melee for long fights?

Is there anyone that actually thinks this is a good design?  This seems like a hold over design from D&D that is poorly implemented into games.

Having limited mana leads to really bad design choices for a game.  I see the following happening to balance.

1) Fights are much easier/faster so that casters can kill the boss before they run out of mana.

2) They make casters spells super OP so they can burn the boss quickly.

3) They force casters into hybrid melee classes instead of pure range.

4) They just let casters be gimped solo, and except they can't balance it.

At a minimum I think games should have high mana regen like ESO, where you can do light/heavy attacks to get your mana back quickly.

I also propose there are only 2 bars for all classes Health and Energy. Call it: physical energy, mental energy, mana energy, spirit energy, stamina energy ... call it whatever for the class, but it's the same thing.  Attacks that require more energy will heavily drain your bar, so you cant spam the attack, but still have your bar regen during the fight, both naturally or through energy draining/regening attacks.

I am curious if I am missing something here. Are other casters annoyed by this also? Why is this a thing in 2022?

AlBQuirky

Interesting. I've always thought this was a "balance thing", making spellcasters limited like "warriors" who depend on fatigue or some similar "bar."

You seem to touch on this with the idea of one bar that is a pool that BOTH spells and mundane attacks pull from.

As for the D&D angle, for sure it was in the beginning MMORPGs. With 5th edition, maybe 4th edition, spellcasters acquired "zero cost" spells that they can cast with impunity. They are certainly lesser spells, but I look at balance again. In D&D, depending on the DM's world, the first editions "explained" spell usage as an amount of energy spent in order to cast the spells. Thus spellcasters had only so many spells per day. Even in the beginning, this mechanic bugged me. I hated equipping my mage with a dagger or staff when their spells ran out

I do like your idea of a single pool to pull from all actions. Then I think, is it all about slowing down the leveling process? That certainly be said, if one looks a game in that way. They way MMOs are made today, they are made to be "beaten", or "won." Games today seem to minimized recovery of spent "pools."

Interesting take. I like looking into this aspect

Scot

It is a hold over from DnD, many systems work better in that area my eyes, both in tabletop and video games.

Rungar

most games today have no distinction between spellcaster or melee other than the resource they use. i.e mages use magic and fighters use stamina. I am against the use of any D&D systems other than the monster manual. 

olepi

I guess the main question is: does your mana and stamina regenerate over time?

Using stamina for physical attacks makes sense, and mana for magical attacks. If you rest between attacks, your stamina should recover; mana should too.

I never liked the mechanism where you get a limited pool per day, with no regeneration.

And I hate mechanisms where you know a lot of spells, but can only equip a few at a time. To get to the others, you have to swap your weapon, even though the weapon has nothing to do with magic at all. (*cough*ESO*cough*)

Vrika

I think limited mana is good. Classes should play differently, and it's one of the things that make playing a caster different experience from playing a melee.

Brainy

Vrika said:

I think limited mana is good. Classes should play differently, and it's one of the things that make playing a caster different experience from playing a melee.

Curious do you play melee or casters more often?

Sovrath

Brainy said:

Vrika said:

I think limited mana is good. Classes should play differently, and it's one of the things that make playing a caster different experience from playing a melee.

Curious do you play melee or casters more often?

I liked the limited mana in Lineage 2 because it forced me to be careful of how i played. the character I played had an ability to take lifeforce and convert to mana. Part of how one played that class was to use the management tools at one's disposal.

I think as long as a class gives management tools, maybe some hard choices for some of them, it's fine.

As for melee, there should be managing stamina as well.  Or if not a direct stamina pool then fighting for a certain amount of time brings fatigue and that affects performance.

For a mage, maybe the life swap tool as mentioned above (which took more life for  less mana so you had to also use life taking spells to balance a bit) or perhaps there was is a choice to draw more mana than you would have access to (sort of like wheel of time) and you can burn yourself, ableit temporarily, out.

If there is just unlimted everything then it's rather boring to me. One of the reasons I like the souls games.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Brainy

Sovrath said:

Brainy said:

Vrika said:

I think limited mana is good. Classes should play differently, and it's one of the things that make playing a caster different experience from playing a melee.

Curious do you play melee or casters more often?

I liked the limited mana in Lineage 2 because it forced me to be careful of how i played. the character I played had an ability to take lifeforce and convert to mana. Part of how one played that class was to use the management tools at one's disposal.

I think as long as a class gives management tools, maybe some hard choices for some of them, it's fine.

As for melee, there should be managing stamina as well.  Or if not a direct stamina pool then fighting for a certain amount of time brings fatigue and that affects performance.

For a mage, maybe the life swap tool as mentioned above (which took more life for  less mana so you had to also use life taking spells to balance a bit) or perhaps there was is a choice to draw more mana than you would have access to (sort of like wheel of time) and you can burn yourself, ableit temporarily, out.

If there is just unlimted everything then it's rather boring to me. One of the reasons I like the souls games.

Well in Dark Souls 3 melee get unlimited attacks, its only casters that have to manage resources or run out completely forever.  How is this fine for melee to regen but not casters?  I don't see how this makes sense unless people are just going with this design due to tradition started with early gaming design.

Kyleran

Brainy said:

Sovrath said:

Brainy said:

Vrika said:

I think limited mana is good. Classes should play differently, and it's one of the things that make playing a caster different experience from playing a melee.

Curious do you play melee or casters more often?

I liked the limited mana in Lineage 2 because it forced me to be careful of how i played. the character I played had an ability to take lifeforce and convert to mana. Part of how one played that class was to use the management tools at one's disposal.

I think as long as a class gives management tools, maybe some hard choices for some of them, it's fine.

As for melee, there should be managing stamina as well.  Or if not a direct stamina pool then fighting for a certain amount of time brings fatigue and that affects performance.

For a mage, maybe the life swap tool as mentioned above (which took more life for  less mana so you had to also use life taking spells to balance a bit) or perhaps there was is a choice to draw more mana than you would have access to (sort of like wheel of time) and you can burn yourself, ableit temporarily, out.

If there is just unlimted everything then it's rather boring to me. One of the reasons I like the souls games.

Well in Dark Souls 3 melee get unlimited attacks, its only casters that have to manage resources or run out completely forever.  How is this fine for melee to regen but not casters?  I don't see how this makes sense unless people are just going with this design due to tradition started with early gaming design.

Never played DS3 but my guess is this is to balance fact casters are supposed to kill without getting hit, or hit very often.

Melee have to survive long enough to prevail, taking damage from the git go.

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The user and all related content has been deleted.

TwistedSister77

Brainy said:

Vrika said:

I think limited mana is good. Classes should play differently, and it's one of the things that make playing a caster different experience from playing a melee.

Curious do you play melee or casters more often?

I know you weren't asking me, but I've put in thousands of hours as healer... but only in a game where I'm guilded.  PUGS are brutal on healers

 1) they think their individual character should get the heals

 2) They love to be lazy or not use game mechanics to avoid damage... putting stress on the healer. A great healer stunts their game improvements (over compensates for their poor gameplay)

3) You get malders who DM you nasty garbage when they die.

These days, I play DPS much more.

finefluff

In general, the purpose of limits is to create strategic choice making opportunities for players. Players must choose how often the use an ability as part of their strategy. This creates a sense of risk for using an ability too often or too early, which can make the game more interesting, requiring more thoughtful play. The risk can perhaps be offset with other strategic choices like having mana replenishing items.

Having no limits on spell casts can remove an element of strategy from the game. But then, the strategy can come down to which spells you use rather than how often you use them. 

Shoot'em ups are an example of a game with both. You can shoot your main attack an unlimited number of times, but you have limited use abilities you can acquire.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/253750/Ikaruga/

Maybe an interesting approach would be to have a mage class with spells that have no costs and more powerful spells that do.

Rungar

im kind of partial to giving players a few different cooldowns to play with and you can combine these cooldowns for more powerful effects. Adds a layer of strategy over and above the simple cost of something. You can redefine gameplay with this kind of mechanic because games are too aoe intensive now and this helps reign it back in a little bit so you use the aoe when you really need it, not just spamming it. 

Scot

Rungar said:

most games today have no distinction between spellcaster or melee other than the resource they use. i.e mages use magic and fighters use stamina. I am against the use of any D&D systems other than the monster manual. 

DnD have done some great lore back grounds, that Pathfinder is based on one, but just leave those rules in the box.

Mendel

The system I tried to design in 02-04 used both Fatigue (for physical energy) and Mana (for magical energy).  The activities differed mostly in that Fatigue rebuilt slowly, and recovery could be augmented by eating, drinking, and otherwise relaxing.  I really wish I had thought of including to music, storytelling and poetry in the list of recovery activities; you are all role-players, just pretend it was in there.  Fatigue was used for fighting activities, non-combat movement, and to abstract units of work.  A wall might take 3,000 stones to build (using 1-10 Fatigue to move each stone, and another 10-15 to cut, position, and mortar).  This system could easily accommodate communal projects. 

Mana never regenerated naturally and the character had to undertake specific activities (mostly eating specific foods).  The biggest activity outside of eating was Transferring. In Transferring, one character could release a Mana point, and another could Capture it.  Both releasing and capturing mana required a skill roll.  Since magic users were very scarce, it was important for all characters to be able to capture and release mana.  All non-magicians were essentially mana batteries.  Transferring mana was essential to communal magic.

When developing the system, I eventually added a third energy mechanism, Piety.  It worked very similar to Mana (above) in that it never regenerated naturally, but only by specific duties.  The big difference is that players used a Pray (release) skill roll to transfer Piety to a specific deity for use by another character.  Most of the Piety regeneration activities that I had thought of involved doing physical activity (using Fatigue) to help a priest (cleaning a grave yard, worshiping at a shrine, attending a religious festival, etc.).  Originally, I had 4 pools, 1 for each of the Elder Gods, with the Younger Gods and Godlings drawing from these pools (at different rates) to perform miracles for characters.  Miracles were essentially magics that were too powerful for human magicians to cast (resurrection, teleport, etc).  This system eventually got collapsed into a single Piety pool during manual testing, due to the headache of manually keeping track of who spent how much for whom.

Sovrath

Brainy said:

Sovrath said:

Brainy said:

Vrika said:

I think limited mana is good. Classes should play differently, and it's one of the things that make playing a caster different experience from playing a melee.

Curious do you play melee or casters more often?

I liked the limited mana in Lineage 2 because it forced me to be careful of how i played. the character I played had an ability to take lifeforce and convert to mana. Part of how one played that class was to use the management tools at one's disposal.

I think as long as a class gives management tools, maybe some hard choices for some of them, it's fine.

As for melee, there should be managing stamina as well.  Or if not a direct stamina pool then fighting for a certain amount of time brings fatigue and that affects performance.

For a mage, maybe the life swap tool as mentioned above (which took more life for  less mana so you had to also use life taking spells to balance a bit) or perhaps there was is a choice to draw more mana than you would have access to (sort of like wheel of time) and you can burn yourself, ableit temporarily, out.

If there is just unlimted everything then it's rather boring to me. One of the reasons I like the souls games.

Well in Dark Souls 3 melee get unlimited attacks, its only casters that have to manage resources or run out completely forever.  How is this fine for melee to regen but not casters?  I don't see how this makes sense unless people are just going with this design due to tradition started with early gaming design.

hmmm that's a good point. so let's "scratch that." I'll stick wtih the Lineage 2 bit.

Sovrath

coretex666 said:

Sovrath said:

Brainy said:

Vrika said:

I think limited mana is good. Classes should play differently, and it's one of the things that make playing a caster different experience from playing a melee.

Curious do you play melee or casters more often?

I liked the limited mana in Lineage 2 because it forced me to be careful of how i played. the character I played had an ability to take lifeforce and convert to mana. Part of how one played that class was to use the management tools at one's disposal.

I think as long as a class gives management tools, maybe some hard choices for some of them, it's fine.

As for melee, there should be managing stamina as well.  Or if not a direct stamina pool then fighting for a certain amount of time brings fatigue and that affects performance.

For a mage, maybe the life swap tool as mentioned above (which took more life for  less mana so you had to also use life taking spells to balance a bit) or perhaps there was is a choice to draw more mana than you would have access to (sort of like wheel of time) and you can burn yourself, ableit temporarily, out.

If there is just unlimted everything then it's rather boring to me. One of the reasons I like the souls games.

I also liked that in L2, there were classes that could, among other things, replenish mana for others (e.g. Shillien Elder). It opened up room for more roles in the group on top of the standard holy trinity.

I forgot about the Shilien Elder's ability to do that. I loved  the idea of teaming up with other classes. I remember teaming up with a High Elf (was that what they were called?) class that also did the same thing. Was sort  of a last minute group but it really worked out.

cameltosis

I am a fan of limited resources pools and slow regen. I really dislike high regen resources pools like in SWTOR or WAR.

Why?

Because the thing I value most in combat mechanics is depth. Depth in combat mechanics is a measure of the meaningful decisions you make. The more depth there is, the more the outcome of a fight depends on your making the correct decisions at the correct time.

By having a limited resource pool with slow regen, you are introducing an extra thing to think about when making decisions. Do I use this big skill now and burn up my mana, or do I save it for later? Do I pop a mana potion now, or hope someone else can give me some mana? Do I go all out right from the start and hope I can win before i run out of resources, or do I pace myself?

Such things are only possible if the game provides meaningful ways to overcome the limitation of a limited resource pool. If it doesn't, if the limited resource pool only works as a hard limit (much like an enrage timer) then I would agree that is just a bad design choice.

I would hold up early years LotRO as the golden standard.

My captain (melee buffer) could burn through her power pool in about 90s, and my in-combat regen took about 240s to regen to full

Out in the world, most enemies could be killed within that 90s time period, so when soloing resource management was rarely a thing.

By myself, I had power potions to refill my power pool, as well as two skills which, with the right traits, would regen my power too. I also had a buff that would increase power regen.

In groups, we had fellowship manuvers (conjunctions) which, if u did the right ones, gave u loads of power and health. We also had loremasters who could drain power from the enemy and then hand it out to friends.

The end result is that despite my captain running out of power in 90 seconds of normal play, with the right decision making I could make it through a 30 minute boss fight and never run out of power.

Now, if you are making a game built around action combat, then ignore everything I said. Action combat has little to do with decision making, that is not it's purpose. Action combat is all about the physical actions of the player - accuracy, dexterity, speed - and so you don't want to put anything in the way of that physicality. A limited resource pool only serves to get in the way of the action

Brainy

cameltosis said:

Now, if you are making a game built around action combat, then ignore everything I said. Action combat has little to do with decision making, that is not it's purpose. Action combat is all about the physical actions of the player - accuracy, dexterity, speed - and so you don't want to put anything in the way of that physicality. A limited resource pool only serves to get in the way of the action

I actually don't really understand this as realistic at all.  Its only by design from earlier systems like DND where ranged combat will tire someone out faster than melee combat and physical combat can go unlimited.

From a realistic point of view, ranged combat is much less mentally and physically exhausting than melee combat.  I can sit and fire a gun all day long, and by extension any fire/electrical/water weapon could go until your ammo ran out.  So if there was a wand or staff with unlimited power you should be able to continue casting that forever.  Realistically how many times could someone swing a great axe or do worldwinds with a 2 handed hammer before they tire out and become completely exhausted.  Doing power moves in melee would be much more exhausting.

Personally I look at energy/stam/mana bars as ways to limit the amount of dps burst a player can do.  So that way powerful moves can drain the bar heavily, and it will take time to regen enough to do another similar power move.

Brainy

Kyleran said:

Never played DS3 but my guess is this is to balance fact casters are supposed to kill without getting hit, or hit very often.

Melee have to survive long enough to prevail, taking damage from the git go.

Isn't that the purpose of armor?  To balance this?

Making a mage run out of mana and switch to a melee weapon is just ridiculous to me.

What if we reversed the equation and melee could only do 4 or 5 attacks then had to run around dodging the boss using a wand because they are out of physical stamina.

Its just bad design to me.

Ungood

I've had this discussion with several of my friends, and it goes back and forth a bit, but overall it comes down to this.

Ranged as a tactic is far more powerful than Melee.

This is because, to melee a mob, you are getting hit in return. As such, every single melee build is limited on how long they can stay at melee based on their HP. This is an absolute limitation they all face, regardless of all and any other factors.

As long as they take any damage at all, they have a time limit on how long they can engage in that fight, and this is an absolute for them. They cannot change this. They have to be in range to get hit by the mob to be able to hit the mob.

In regards to ranged builds, they do not have that limiter. Regardless if your character is using a bow, thrown weapon, or casting spells, they can do so from a safe distance where they are not getting hit in return, so these ranged builds can continue to fight indefinitely with no fixed limited qualifier like a melee faces with their HP and their need to be in attack range to fight the mob.

As far as ranged builds go, they can legit hang back and shoot/blast the mob for as long as they have some form of ammunition, be it arrows or mana, or whatever.

As such, the only way to balance ranged against melee would be to limit their ammo supply, thus giving them the same qualifier as the melee, where at some point, they have to either kill the mob or give up. 

I mean otherwise, if we are going to give endless arrows and spells, we might as well give melee endless HP and call it a wash.

Does that kind of game sound boring as all fuck? Where no one faces the risk of death, no one has to use tactics, just, pick your playstyle and you can endlessly fight until you win.

Seems like an overall shit game if you ask me.

Case in point, in DDO, they have made it so that Archers/Ranged, can have unlimited Ammo, with their Arcane Archer pass, and since then, almost no one, outside direct specialized tank builds plays melee anymore.

And really, I can't say I blame them, or am I the least but surprised. Ranged is super easy button. You never have to worry about getting hit, and you have endless means to do damage.

Outside lag spikes or making a foolish mistake, winning is inevitable, so if you have any skill at all, you will very easy outperform all but the best melee players.

The only other way to combat this, is to make the Mobs just as heavy ranged to counter the overwhelming power and advantage that ranged builds have. Have them just blast/shoot the hell out players that use ranged on them.

I am sure that would result in a massive amount of butthurt by ranged builds who planned to dance their little you can't hit me bullshit, and becoming pincushions, and no doubt, those poor bastard melee builds that are now getting shot to death before they can even get close enough to attack, the game would still suck, all around, for everyone.

So, I mean, ideally, there needs to be some means to balance things so that one style of play is not super OP.

As for me, normally play healers and melee, but, I have converted all my leveling/ dungeon running melee builds in DDO to ranged, because it was a stupid OP playstyle.

Outside my direct raid tank, which was built for a very specific purpose, and truth be told, outside being a raid tank, they suck angry ball sweat, everyone else is being converted to ranged. It's new to me, as I never liked Pew Pew Builds, but, there are simply too many disadvantages to being melee vs all the advantages of being ranged, for me not to make the conversion at this point.

So if you can tell me how to really balance ranged vs melee, without making ranged the stupid OP playstyle it all too often ends up as, I am listening.

Crying that you have limiters on your ranged build, is not winning any points with me.

Brainy

Ungood said:

I've had this discussion with several of my friends, and it goes back and forth a bit, but overall it comes down to this.

Ranged as a tactic is far more powerful than Melee.

This is because, to melee a mob, you are getting hit in return. As such, every single melee build is limited on how long they can stay at melee based on their HP. This is an absolute limitation they all face, regardless of all and any other factors.

As long as they take any damage at all, they have a time limit on how long they can engage in that fight, and this is an absolute for them. They cannot change this. They have to be in range to get hit by the mob to be able to hit the mob.

In regards to ranged builds, they do not have that limiter. Regardless if your character is using a bow, thrown weapon, or casting spells, they can do so from a safe distance where they are not getting hit in return, so these ranged builds can continue to fight indefinitely with no fixed limited qualifier like a melee faces with their HP and their need to be in attack range to fight the mob.

As far as ranged builds go, they can legit hang back and shoot/blast the mob for as long as they have some form of ammunition, be it arrows or mana, or whatever.

As such, the only way to balance ranged against melee would be to limit their ammo supply, thus giving them the same qualifier as the melee, where at some point, they have to either kill the mob or give up. 

I mean otherwise, if we are going to give endless arrows and spells, we might as well give melee endless HP and call it a wash.

Does that kind of game sound boring as all fuck? Where no one faces the risk of death, no one has to use tactics, just, pick your playstyle and you can endlessly fight until you win.

Seems like an overall shit game if you ask me.

Case in point, in DDO, they have made it so that Archers/Ranged, can have unlimited Ammo, with their Arcane Archer pass, and since then, almost no one, outside direct specialized tank builds plays melee anymore.

And really, I can't say I blame them, or am I the least but surprised. Ranged is super easy button. You never have to worry about getting hit, and you have endless means to do damage.

Outside lag spikes or making a foolish mistake, winning is inevitable, so if you have any skill at all, you will very easy outperform all but the best melee players.

The only other way to combat this, is to make the Mobs just as heavy ranged to counter the overwhelming power and advantage that ranged builds have. Have them just blast/shoot the hell out players that use ranged on them.

I am sure that would result in a massive amount of butthurt by ranged builds who planned to dance their little you can't hit me bullshit, and becoming pincushions, and no doubt, those poor bastard melee builds that are now getting shot to death before they can even get close enough to attack, the game would still suck, all around, for everyone.

So, I mean, ideally, there needs to be some means to balance things so that one style of play is not super OP.

As for me, normally play healers and melee, but, I have converted all my leveling/ dungeon running melee builds in DDO to ranged, because it was a stupid OP playstyle.

Outside my direct raid tank, which was built for a very specific purpose, and truth be told, outside being a raid tank, they suck angry ball sweat, everyone else is being converted to ranged. It's new to me, as I never liked Pew Pew Builds, but, there are simply too many disadvantages to being melee vs all the advantages of being ranged, for me not to make the conversion at this point.

So if you can tell me how to really balance ranged vs melee, without making ranged the stupid OP playstyle it all too often ends up as, I am listening.

Crying that you have limiters on your ranged build, is not winning any points with me.

Well I think you are making some valid points for many games, however this is all due to bad design.

There are games where people can play melee classes and be the last standing and in some games melee classes are the best classes regardless of of unlimited mana or not.  Diablo 3 comes to mind here.

In ESO bosses have spell mechanics that attack ranged characters, like spikes coming from the ground, or from ceiling or just random ranged attacks.

In Dark Souls bosses have closing attacks that force Mages to constantly be on the move or die.

So what you are describing is mainly caused by what I'm talking about.  If you limit mages mana pool or number of spells then you have to make their spells OP to balance that.   Which is why mages can come in and burst DPS by dumping their mana bar.  How is that strategy?

Melee chars are balanced by high armor, ability to parry and block.

So yeah D&D games where high level mages just come in and put down the IWIN button 1 shot bomb is exactly the lack of good design I'm talking about.

So a mage that just magic dumps there spells then sits and watches the rest of fight, how is that good design?  Some of these old D&D based magic games need to catch up to 2022.

BLNX

Brainy said:

Ungood said:

I've had this discussion with several of my friends, and it goes back and forth a bit, but overall it comes down to this.

Ranged as a tactic is far more powerful than Melee.

This is because, to melee a mob, you are getting hit in return. As such, every single melee build is limited on how long they can stay at melee based on their HP. This is an absolute limitation they all face, regardless of all and any other factors.

As long as they take any damage at all, they have a time limit on how long they can engage in that fight, and this is an absolute for them. They cannot change this. They have to be in range to get hit by the mob to be able to hit the mob.

In regards to ranged builds, they do not have that limiter. Regardless if your character is using a bow, thrown weapon, or casting spells, they can do so from a safe distance where they are not getting hit in return, so these ranged builds can continue to fight indefinitely with no fixed limited qualifier like a melee faces with their HP and their need to be in attack range to fight the mob.

As far as ranged builds go, they can legit hang back and shoot/blast the mob for as long as they have some form of ammunition, be it arrows or mana, or whatever.

As such, the only way to balance ranged against melee would be to limit their ammo supply, thus giving them the same qualifier as the melee, where at some point, they have to either kill the mob or give up. 

I mean otherwise, if we are going to give endless arrows and spells, we might as well give melee endless HP and call it a wash.

Does that kind of game sound boring as all fuck? Where no one faces the risk of death, no one has to use tactics, just, pick your playstyle and you can endlessly fight until you win.

Seems like an overall shit game if you ask me.

Case in point, in DDO, they have made it so that Archers/Ranged, can have unlimited Ammo, with their Arcane Archer pass, and since then, almost no one, outside direct specialized tank builds plays melee anymore.

And really, I can't say I blame them, or am I the least but surprised. Ranged is super easy button. You never have to worry about getting hit, and you have endless means to do damage.

Outside lag spikes or making a foolish mistake, winning is inevitable, so if you have any skill at all, you will very easy outperform all but the best melee players.

The only other way to combat this, is to make the Mobs just as heavy ranged to counter the overwhelming power and advantage that ranged builds have. Have them just blast/shoot the hell out players that use ranged on them.

I am sure that would result in a massive amount of butthurt by ranged builds who planned to dance their little you can't hit me bullshit, and becoming pincushions, and no doubt, those poor bastard melee builds that are now getting shot to death before they can even get close enough to attack, the game would still suck, all around, for everyone.

So, I mean, ideally, there needs to be some means to balance things so that one style of play is not super OP.

As for me, normally play healers and melee, but, I have converted all my leveling/ dungeon running melee builds in DDO to ranged, because it was a stupid OP playstyle.

Outside my direct raid tank, which was built for a very specific purpose, and truth be told, outside being a raid tank, they suck angry ball sweat, everyone else is being converted to ranged. It's new to me, as I never liked Pew Pew Builds, but, there are simply too many disadvantages to being melee vs all the advantages of being ranged, for me not to make the conversion at this point.

So if you can tell me how to really balance ranged vs melee, without making ranged the stupid OP playstyle it all too often ends up as, I am listening.

Crying that you have limiters on your ranged build, is not winning any points with me.

Well I think you are making some valid points for many games, however this is all due to bad design.

There are games where people can play melee classes and be the last standing and in some games melee classes are the best classes regardless of of unlimited mana or not.  Diablo 3 comes to mind here.

In ESO bosses have spell mechanics that attack ranged characters, like spikes coming from the ground, or from ceiling or just random ranged attacks.

In Dark Souls bosses have closing attacks that force Mages to constantly be on the move or die.

So what you are describing is mainly caused by what I'm talking about.  If you limit mages mana pool or number of spells then you have to make their spells OP to balance that.   Which is why mages can come in and burst DPS by dumping their mana bar.  How is that strategy?

Melee chars are balanced by high armor, ability to parry and block.

So yeah D&D games where high level mages just come in and put down the IWIN button 1 shot bomb is exactly the lack of good design I'm talking about.

So a mage that just magic dumps there spells then sits and watches the rest of fight, how is that good design?  Some of these old D&D based magic games need to catch up to 2022.

One of the official supplements in 5e give wizzies a spell that make them immune to damage. Who needs concentration checks or attacks of opportunity against something that can cast wish?

Here's the spell link: http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/spell:invulnerability

Better hope you can drown them for ten minutes since they can still cast a lot of spells without somatic components, so grapple doesn't help much.

Rungar

the whole mage glass cannon thingy is fundamentally wrong. Any wizard should be very resilient to other wizards. Just like fighters should be resilient to other fighters. 

These games have it all backwards due to D&D. This is why games need situational mitigation so mages and warriors alike can be what they were meant to be.