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Potion Replacement Ideas
SotSS
Member Posts: 47
Personally I'm not a big fan of potions, especially not in a game like GW, and I know I'm not alone. ITT, we post our ideas for replacement energy regeneration systems.
Personally, I would like to see a skill, an 11th skill shared by all, that acts as a means of energy restoration. The catch is that, besides a recharge timer, the regeneration is not instant nor is it a passive over time effect; you enter into an immobile state for, say, 5 seconds (though the numbers can be changed as needed), and you are vulnerable during this phase: any source of damage (or perhaps only some sources such as direct damage, excluding DOTs; whatever is needed to make it balanced) interrupts the regeneration process and does some bonus damage and/or stuns you for a short period of time.
This would make energy regeneration a more strategic option rather than just a "press hotkey, drink potion, get energy" affair. You will have to weigh the pros and cons of various options: is it worth it to retreat and regen in safety, allowing me to once again fight at full capacity with little worry of being hit while regenerating, or will leaving my allies to regen ultimately be worse than staying for awhile longer and doing what I can with whatever energy I can naturally regenerate? Do I attempt to regen during a lull in the battle to quickly get back up to speed, but potentially risk getting hit and hit hard while doing so?
It would also add a new element to teamplay: instead of either "toughing it out," running away, or hitting "regen" in the middle of combat and praying that nobody targets you, you can tell your allies that you need to regen, and they can defend you while you are vulnerable. Even outside of coordinated teams, this idea promotes teamwork: see an enemy running towards or getting ready to cast a spell on a regening ally? Hit the enemy with a stun or knockback to give your ally some time, or put a shield on your vulnerable ally to protect him.
So thats the basics of my idea, anyway. Anyone have any thoughts on how to improve upon it? Or do you have an entirely new and better idea? Lets come up with some replacement systems, and maybe we can get the devs to rethink using potions...
Comments
I think the pots will work fine and i trust Anet to make them work well. Also, the pots are basically a skill on your bar because there is an icon for them next to the energy bar.
Well, the great thing about Guild Wars is that most, if not all, classes possess specific skills that help with energy regeneration to begin with, not to mention the Blood Magic spells that focus specifically on generating energy for a Necro's allies.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the same concept being applied to Guild Wars 2.
Going a step further though, here's an idea. A game mechanic that involves joint rituals or sigils being co-operatively casted/channeled over an area (or period of time) that aids the energy regeneration (along with health regenration or w/e) of either oneself or allies within the ritual's vicinity.
Still, I think the main issue here is balance, such that potions and consumables do not become direly essential to a player's or group's success.
I use to agree with the OP's sentiments, but after the full explanation in the Anet blog post of why they have potions, I think that potions are going to be done correctly. Also, after playing the demo, I don't see potions as being an essential component of EVERY fight, but rather an indicator of both efficiency and/or extended fight.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
The potion system is definitely my biggest reservation about the game. I do have a lot of faith in ArenaNet though, I'm sure it wasn't a decision made lightly. I kind of just want to wait to see how it plays.
I think a lot of it depends on the rate of energy regeneration and cooldown of the potions. I could get on board with any system that doesn't involve just mindless chugging everytime the cooldown is up.
If it's something like energy takes 1 minute to fully recover and the potion has a 2 minute cooldown, then I can see the potion being wasted or not being available when you really need it. Especially since we know that offensive skills are cheap and defensive are expensive.
On the other hand, additional energy is additional energy, so your maximum usage can always be increased by mindlessly chugging.
I half wonder that if they expect people are going to chug a pot every X amount of time, why not just increase the energy regen by that amount and just remove the potion mechanic from the game. They're supposed to be cheap and easily available, so it doesn't really seem like an effective money sink.
I do like the OP's idea of a tradeoff, but considering how potions would mostly be needed for defensive skills, I'm not really sure what that tradeoff would be. It's not like if you need extra energy to dodge that you're going to be in a position to stun yourself/take extra damage for a period of time.
Wait and see I guess is all I can say. We know ArenaNet doesn't talk about things unless they're in the game and working, so it might be here to stay. Still, it is early so maybe a better idea will come about.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
You make a good point about energy amount for defense vs. offense. If not having enough energy is mainly a concern for defensive skills, my idea wouldn't work.
While writing the OP, I mainly had Monster Hunter in mind. In MH, your weapon has "sharpness" that decreases as you use it, and it becomes less and less effective as you use it. This is, in a sense, like energy/mana in most games. To increase your sharpness, you have to use a whetstone. Assuming you don't have the Speed Sharpening bonus, it takes an appreciable amount of time to sharpen your weapon, and you are vulnerable during the process. You had to either retreat and sharpen in safety, or time your sharpening according to the monster's behavior, which requires some knowledge of their fighting patterns, or else get the crap slapped out of you.
I loved that there was more to it than just "click button... instant sharpness!" and would much prefer something like it, something that requires a little more skill and strategy, than the mindless potion chug.
In a sense, a more realistic experience than simply having to drink 'magical water' every couple of minutes.
Hmm, just a passing thought. A toxicity mechanic (something similar to The Witcher) would do well to curb the whole 'potion chugging' routine.
The way it has been explained in interviews (I do not have now, but I will look for them to link), is that you do not need potions. The potions will serve as a way for less-skilled players to still work alongside more talented players. If you are good and manager your energy effectively, you will not need potions much, if ever. Additionally, on this same note, it has been said that defensive skills will cost a great deal more energy than offensive skills. So, following that logic, if you are good at the game and can avoid taking much damage, you should not run out of energy just by using attack skills.
Edit: There we go.
http://www.killtenrats.com/2010/11/29/gw2-interview-on-energy-and-skills-pt-1/
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
Drink a beer between combat to get fast regenration. I don't want any way to increase in combat regenration, it is more interesting if you have to make your points count than when someone drinks a bunch of pots.
Pots in combat kills a lot of the stretegy when you fight, particularly in PvP.
I admit I hadn't read that article (blasphemous for a GW fan, I know). While still not necesarilly ideal IMO, it sounds better than most RPG's and seems like a decent and perfectly tolerable use of energy potions to me.
Yeah, it's worth making the distinction between pots used in:
PvE: Unlimited
Q: Why?
A: 1. To help unskilled/newbie players spam pots in combats where they jump in deeper than they expect; unexpectedly get into hot water, then instead of penalizing and inactivating their skills because they run out of energy resource allows them to use skills and (it's hoped positioning) to get out of that tight spot and improve using the skills that would help them avoid needing potions in the first place. As said defensive is more energy intensive to you should know how well you are playing. Also a gold-sink.
PvP: Limited
Q: Why?
A: There's some strategy around a limit to how many pots so should lead to more strategy using this resource efficiently as well as timing when to refill. Inspiration from some other games eg LoL, TF2...
I'm guessing players don't have to buy any pots in PvE if they are against them and want the challenge? But I feel inclinded to grumble at pot use when it's spammable. I think this is an insurance policy to keeping the whole game (PvE) accessible to as many playstyles (lack of!) as possible. Afterall some will want to play through for the story more than the combat/challenge, sorta how I personally found ME2: Enjoyable story and the combat was a means to an end for me in that game to be able to read/watch/interact with the next chapter.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Oh boy not this again....
I for one have had no problems with potions in any game so my stance when people are complaining about the use of energy potions is always the one of being baffled. Its not even health potions and you guys are still having a shitstorm over it.
Also, I don't like your idea. It just sounds like unneccessary punishment in a game that needs you to make decisions on the fly and on the battlefield without retreating.
This is not a game.
This is a shitstorm?
I, for one have learned something from this thread. I had read the Kill Ten Rats articles but still had reservations. Maybe it's in there and it just didn't get across to me, but I know I hadn't been thinking about the underlying theory being that if you're a good and efficient player you shouldn't really need pots at all. I got caught up in the aspect of them being cheap and not really seeing the downside to chugging every opportunity.
Even though it does make a lot more sense to me now, I would still have to see how it plays. First, it makes me wonder about the overall or end game difficulty level, especially in dungeons. Are they designed to be doable without drinking pots at all?
What about people whose roles are on the control side of things? Is control offensively (cheaply) using moves to keep mobs off your friends, or will a great deal of your effort be on defensive moves for yourself? It sounds like from what other people have said that we shouldn't expect one person in a dungeon group to have way more potion use than the rest, but will that be the case? Again, it's possible I'm still missing the point here, so I don't know. I'm asking.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
This is a shitstorm?
I, for one have learned something from this thread. I had read the Kill Ten Rats articles but still had reservations. Maybe it's in there and it just didn't get across to me, but I know I hadn't been thinking about the underlying theory being that if you're a good and efficient player you shouldn't really need pots at all. I got caught up in the aspect of them being cheap and not really seeing the downside to chugging every opportunity.
Even though it does make a lot more sense to me now, I would still have to see how it plays. First, it makes me wonder about the overall or end game difficulty level, especially in dungeons. Are they designed to be doable without drinking pots at all?
What about people whose roles are on the control side of things? Is control offensively (cheaply) using moves to keep mobs off your friends, or will a great deal of your effort be on defensive moves for yourself? It sounds like from what other people have said that we shouldn't expect one person in a dungeon group to have way more potion use than the rest, but will that be the case? Again, it's possible I'm still missing the point here, so I don't know. I'm asking.
I think the most of the 'shit-storming' is coming from players that are used to GW1's energy mechanics. I for one was concerned about the mechanic at first (mostly because I'm fond of spamming high energy spells and hate when the energy mechanic makes you deplete before you kill your quarry), but after reading some of the articles around, my fears were quelled.
To answer your last question though, there are times when one person does deplete energy faster than the other members of the team. That person is called 'the carry' (should be familiar to LoL players), and he is the one doing most of the work while the rest of your team is flailing wildly and targeting non-optimal enemies. In an ideal situation, your super-pro guild team won't have a carry and everyone will consume energy about equally, but in PUGs... you are bound to run into this type of situation.
I also don't see why people worry so much about a minor game mechanic as energy potions. GW 2 will be a very fast paced action oriented game; so I'd rather just focus on the guy/mob in front of me and my bigass health blob and just leave the energy bar as an indicator telling me "Hey! Quit defending and start using that damn sword!" Also this fear about people spamming Energy potions is unfounded since they will obviously have a cooldown and only recover (I think) 60% of your energy. At around 3:30, this gameplay video shows that, though I think cooldown bugs out later on in the vid. So it's pretty obvious that ANet know what they are doing and let's just hope that they fine tune the mechanic by the time of release.
This is a shitstorm?
I, for one have learned something from this thread. I had read the Kill Ten Rats articles but still had reservations. Maybe it's in there and it just didn't get across to me, but I know I hadn't been thinking about the underlying theory being that if you're a good and efficient player you shouldn't really need pots at all. I got caught up in the aspect of them being cheap and not really seeing the downside to chugging every opportunity.
Even though it does make a lot more sense to me now, I would still have to see how it plays. First, it makes me wonder about the overall or end game difficulty level, especially in dungeons. Are they designed to be doable without drinking pots at all?
What about people whose roles are on the control side of things? Is control offensively (cheaply) using moves to keep mobs off your friends, or will a great deal of your effort be on defensive moves for yourself? It sounds like from what other people have said that we shouldn't expect one person in a dungeon group to have way more potion use than the rest, but will that be the case? Again, it's possible I'm still missing the point here, so I don't know. I'm asking.
There are a great many unanswered questions, yours being among them. It would be my assumption that, say the Guardian, who I am assuming defends others, would be using abilities defensively. Whether their abilities cost less, or they have better/different energy management remains to be seen.
As for the question about dungeons, it is a very good one. Dungeons should be hard, and if they are designed to be able to be completed without using potions, then less talented players could still go in and finish it. The idea as I understand it is to allow less skilled players to perform on par with more skilled players. The obvious extension of that idea is that no player need be skilled if they can just drink a potion and still win. While that is a disturbing thought, the clear advantage is that you will not be personally punished with failure for the failure of others, which seems to be a theme for Anet for GW2. While I really love that idea for the dynamic event type content, I feel that dungeons should be difficult, and should require the group to work together. The failure of one should be the failure of all. That is a good, old-fashioned dungeon crawl that I really enjoy.
The short answer is that we cannot really know any more than we heard in the KTR interview. My current stance is to trust Anet. While do not *always* agree with their design choices, I have not yet seen them fail to do what they set out to. So we wait.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
Potions are perfectly fine the way they are, and they're not going to change. Accept it. Embrace it. Love it. The problem people are having is that they're still putting too much emphasis on the role the energy pool is going to have in combat. This isn't your grandfather's WoW where watching little blue bars get drained during the course of a single fight are the norm and serve as a primary means of balancing and controlling combat. No, you need to stop looking at the bars, they're really not a big deal anymore. Look past the bars. That's it... let your focus shift past the bars... deep into the monitor, like looking into those posters with the hidden 3D image in there. There you go... see that? In past the bars there's an active, dynamic fight taking place with really important things happening that you need to see now. That enemy... he just shot a fireball at you, now MOVE! There you go! Look... if you move over there to the right, you can get on it's flank and get additional damage. While you're moving, see that one over there chasing your ally? Throw a snare on it to help control it and minimize damage to your ally. Hey look, that siege weapon is empty, and it would really enhance your teams firepower... go get it!
Energy isn't the be all and end all of combat anymore. It's no longer the means you are limited from your full capacity. That's shifted to the fight itself. Situational awareness, tactics. Seeing what's happening in the fight itself, not bar-hopping with the occasional glance to the screen. Stop worrying about potions. They're there to keep you in the fight instead of allowing a shallow energy system to take you out of it. You have far more important things to see now than the energy bar. Let it go.
Let it go.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I'm going to need to play the game myself before deciding if pots are a good or bad idea. ANet gets the benefit of the doubt in the meantime. Everything else looks pretty sweet.
I agree with a few of the people in, don't worry about it. It has already been said that energy won't be an issue unless your playing strict defense. Being that if your not good enough or storng enough to kill and have to run and defend, in which case energy potions would be good because the players in the situation probably are a bit... noobier. In one of their inerviews, can't think of which one it was, they stated just about that. They don't want people numbe cunrching and watching their energy bar, they want people to go out there and fight. So unless your sitting in the back just throwing out defensive skills you won't have a problem.
I should note that I don't think at all that mana pots are going to "ruin" the game. I welcome the absence or at least major reduction of "bar watching" and have enough faith in Anet to believe that they will make all this work; I just think that there are better systems than "click button, get free health/energy at no cost." In fact, I know there are better systems, as several games have employed them already: I mentioned MH's equivelent to energy reduction and regeneration, but there's also the likes of Guild Wars 1, which negated potion drinking altogether with the very way the energy system functioned, as well as the effectiveness of energy regening skills (none of which were "click button, get free energy with no drawbacks!") and other mechanics such as the Necromancer's Soul Reaping attribute.
theres no point replacing a mechanic simply because previous instances of it people didnt like. Its not the potions fault its how you implament it. And I have confidence that Anet is gonna implament it correctly.
You're still placing too much importance on energy in GW2. It's a minor, minor part of the game now. In GW1 entire metas were built aroudn energy denial. You don't have that in GW2, at all. The energy well is intended to be so deep that it'll last multiple fights without needing to be replenished. For something that is intended to be a small part of actual gameplay, you want a simple means to replenish it. <Click> and you're still fighting.
The focus is not on the individual during combat anymore. The focus is on the fight itself.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I agree and disagree with you.
On one hand, I get that it's a minor part of the game. That's how I think of it. To me, it's like a movie. If the movie is only ok, then you just try to enjoy it for what it is. If it's a movie you love, you can't help but think that maybe there's that one scene that doesn't really work as well as it could have. You hold it to a higher standard. To me it speaks volumes that after all the research I've done on this game, one of my biggest reservations is that maybe the perfectly acceptable and functioning energy recovery mechanic might have been done differently.
And I totally get where the game is coming from as far as PVE goes. You shouldn't need potions practically ever if you play tactically, but they're there for when either stuff hits the fan or if you're still learning you can have a crutch.
But when it comes to PVP, I think it no longer is a minor point. In that KTR article it says
I had to wedge in a PvP question, especially with regards to 5v5. First, potions are reset to a certain number each fight. Unlike PvE, the players are not really responsible for potions, and each player will have an equal amount. It’s a pretty low number, but it resets on death. One mechanic they have been experimenting with is placing potions around a map so that during the battle players could go refill them. Cartwright said the system really works well with battlefield movement and spreading everybody out. The potions give a sort of re-supply mechanic. Obviously more defensive players will need to rely more on potions and the re-supply mechanic.
I think once you're talking about not only limiting supply, but also placing them on the battlefield and having them influence how people spread out, it becomes a little more than a minor point. Obviously ArenaNet is trying different things out in order to find what they think is the best implementation, it's certainly valid that the players debate it as well.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Potions are obsolete! I wish arenanet decided to use some other system for regeneration, but we will see how it will turn out once we get our hands on the game itself :=)
Guild Wars 2 Youtube Croatian Maniacs
My Guild Wars titles
They are using a new system regarding energy in GW2.
It's called "irrelevancy".
Managing the battle is replacing managing the energy bar. That's the point people with hang-ups over potions are missing. Energy simply isn't a big deal any more.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I have to agree with the op i don't like pot either, it always remind me some bad pvp game heavily pot dependant like Lineage2, where you even had to get some pot macro to be anything near efficient. I"m sure they won't do the same mistake, but even if the pace of potion taking seam a lot slower in the case of GW2, at least thats what they say. i just don't like it. I'll rather have a skill, move or whatever that could replace pots. Now i understand they might have taken pot because its one of the few option that won't share the same cd as skills for exemple, or something to this nature. But ye i don't like pot. I'll really rather have something trigered by a flee or retreat option, pots in combat are just too ridiculous imo.
Any kind of battle cry like the martial kiai would be better than pot to focus energy imo.