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Let's talk potions and energy

GrumpyJesterGrumpyJester Member Posts: 96

Right now most of you have probably heard about Guild Wars 2 going with a more traditional "energy resource management system". Like mana in many other games, energy will be a resource that you'll have to manage over a longer period of time. Regaining energy is done primarily through the consumption of potions.

 

Now, I personally don't like long-term resource management systems, but I'm sure there are benefits to it as well.

 

Here's the thing I don't get though: potions. Why not an innate regen? What's the big difference mechanic-wise? Potions do have a downside over regen, and that is that they feel cheap. Chugging back energy potions by the dozen while you're fighting a dragon just doesn't feel heroic or interesting to me at all. So why have them? It's a given that players will use them on every available cooldown, so why not just make them innate?

Comments

  • KenaoshiKenaoshi Member UncommonPosts: 1,022

    Consumables is a way to promove the economy/crafting, low lvl craft a potion rich high lvl buys and on and on...

    Dont know if that is EXACTLY what they are planning on gw2, but for me seems logical :p

    now: GW2 (11 80s).
    Dark Souls 2.
    future: Mount&Blade 2 BannerLord.
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    Recommends: Guild Wars 2, Dark Souls, Mount&Blade: Warband, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

  • DraftbeerDraftbeer Member UncommonPosts: 517

    I don't like the idea of potions in GW 2  at all.

    GW 1 was fine without them.

    However I do like collecting components and craft stuff.

    Edit:

    Well overall I prefer to not watch my potion recharge cycle all the time and spam them mindlessly...

    Sounds like stupid, eh?

    "Omg I'm gonna die *spam potions*  uhh... barley... I'm so good!"

  • FalfeirFalfeir Member UncommonPosts: 492

    think of it as an another skill button. a skill which consumes money instead of mana/stamina/adrenaline/etc. consumables are good for economy.

    I need more vespene gas.

  • MumboJumboMumboJumbo Member UncommonPosts: 3,219

    Posted in Geneal Impressions So far thread, it's more apt here:

    http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=278026&postcount=879

    Energy in Guild Wars 2 is a long term resource. It lasts over multiple fights. Every skill uses energy. It is a way for players to gauge how difficult a fight was and how cautious to play. This makes encounters a lot more diverse and in our more solo friendly environment, it allows players to push into higher level and more difficult areas and get into more challenging fights without killing them outright.



    Guild Wars 1 did not have a long term resource. Energy regenerated immediately outside of combat. This created a number of problems for us. The greatest of which was there was no good way to balance encounters. Encounters were very binary – you either won or lost and there was nothing available to tip the scales of the fight in your favor. The only way you could tell if a fight was difficult was if players died. Most of the time this was either because they made a series of mistakes that they couldn’t recover from once they realized it.



    A long term resource allows players to learn from their mistakes, makes the game more approachable, and together these things make the game more fun. You don’t just win or lose – you have time to react and time to recover from errors instead of being punished by death for not playing perfectly.



    Energy regenerates slowly on its own, however, all players have a potion button attached to their energy bar. Drinking a potion returns energy and puts this button into recharge. Out of combat, this recharge is short. During combat, the potions recharge slower, allowing us to reward skilled play and balance difficult encounters against a finite resource pool, so that challenging bosses can’t simply be defeated by bringing more defensive and healing skills. Energy potions are the only kind of consumable that is usable in combat.



    Since I know it is the first follow up question, we aren’t talking about PvP yet, but there will be interesting energy dynamics in PvP, but we will not force players to buy and pound potions to be competitive. Potions are not very expensive, they refill a significant portion of your energy pool and they will also drop off of mobs.



    Also the second question, what about energy management and energy denial skills? Energy as a long term resource does mean that energy management is no longer a direct mechanic in the game. However, we recognize the strategy implications of this decision and there are other mechanics in the game that replace these elements and play style in a way that makes sense for the new game we are making.



    Hopefully this addresses some of people’s concerns with potions in the game. Remember, Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 share a lot of philosophical similarities. but this is a new game and…instead of trying to explain it I’ll just quote one of you since I think this was as well as I could have said it…

  • SertiiSertii Member Posts: 52

    i have faith in arenanet that they will Implement Potions in a more inteligent way than just making players chug them on every cooldown. Personaly though i dont mind them, as they remind me of older mmo's (The EQ series, Early WoW, UO etc.).

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  • DraftbeerDraftbeer Member UncommonPosts: 517
  • Lord.BachusLord.Bachus Member RarePosts: 9,686
    @MumboJumbo great read, an honest reply from THE dev team, sound reasoning and we wil have to see how this PlayStation out for PvE.

    Personally their remarks About PvP got me interested too.

    Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)

  • rbc13183rbc13183 Member Posts: 208

    Originally posted by MumboJumbo

    Posted in Geneal Impressions So far thread, it's more apt here:

    http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=278026&postcount=879

    Energy in Guild Wars 2 is a long term resource. It lasts over multiple fights. Every skill uses energy. It is a way for players to gauge how difficult a fight was and how cautious to play. This makes encounters a lot more diverse and in our more solo friendly environment, it allows players to push into higher level and more difficult areas and get into more challenging fights without killing them outright.



    Guild Wars 1 did not have a long term resource. Energy regenerated immediately outside of combat. This created a number of problems for us. The greatest of which was there was no good way to balance encounters. Encounters were very binary – you either won or lost and there was nothing available to tip the scales of the fight in your favor. The only way you could tell if a fight was difficult was if players died. Most of the time this was either because they made a series of mistakes that they couldn’t recover from once they realized it.



    A long term resource allows players to learn from their mistakes, makes the game more approachable, and together these things make the game more fun. You don’t just win or lose – you have time to react and time to recover from errors instead of being punished by death for not playing perfectly.



    Energy regenerates slowly on its own, however, all players have a potion button attached to their energy bar. Drinking a potion returns energy and puts this button into recharge. Out of combat, this recharge is short. During combat, the potions recharge slower, allowing us to reward skilled play and balance difficult encounters against a finite resource pool, so that challenging bosses can’t simply be defeated by bringing more defensive and healing skills. Energy potions are the only kind of consumable that is usable in combat.



    Since I know it is the first follow up question, we aren’t talking about PvP yet, but there will be interesting energy dynamics in PvP, but we will not force players to buy and pound potions to be competitive. Potions are not very expensive, they refill a significant portion of your energy pool and they will also drop off of mobs.



    Also the second question, what about energy management and energy denial skills? Energy as a long term resource does mean that energy management is no longer a direct mechanic in the game. However, we recognize the strategy implications of this decision and there are other mechanics in the game that replace these elements and play style in a way that makes sense for the new game we are making.



    Hopefully this addresses some of people’s concerns with potions in the game. Remember, Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 share a lot of philosophical similarities. but this is a new game and…instead of trying to explain it I’ll just quote one of you since I think this was as well as I could have said it…

     

    I'm very happy with the way that Arenanet is going about with the potion and energy mechanics. I personally was worried about this feature as well, because I HATE the idea of having to pop 5-15 potions in the middle of an epic fight in order to survive the encounter. It sounds WAY to cheap and unrealistic. Plus the visual is downright silly, if anyone can imagine it.

    The way they are going about it reminds of the weapon poisoning mechanics that WOW implemented for the rogue. You couldn't just poison a weapon to last forever. They had 1-2 hour periods, and then you would have to either check your inventory for more currently stored poisons, or high tail it back to a village or city in order to purchase more.

    The idea of totally eliminating potions and other consumable resources (like poisons) slightly diminishes the immersion for me. I always liked those times when you and your buddies are in one of the main cities, planning for a serious quest or dungeon by stocking up on the necessary resources. It felt more real. But as I said in the first paragraph, I despise resource spamming because that can hurt the immersion as well. Arenanet seems to be doing this the right way. Very happy about that.


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