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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0006905Valley 1Gameplay IdeaApr 13, 2012 12:02 am
Reportersilverhound Assigned To 
Status consideringResolutionopen 
Product Version0.916 
Summary0006905: Increase mana regen when upgrading max mana pool
DescriptionCurrently mana regens at 37 mana second, it doesn't matter if you have 300 mana or 1800+ mana.

My suggestion is to have that increased incrementally, to avoid waiting a minute if you have the highest possible mana.

As a player with a very high max mana pool i end up waiting close to a minute very often while having transitioned to a new room, because the only defense i have is through my mana by using an elemental shield.

A very high mana pool goes at the cost of health and damage.
Low damage makes it take longer to kill an opponent costing more energy spend on the elemental shield upkeep, and forces you to cast more spells costing the energy of the extra spells cast.
low health puts you at the risk of getting 1-shotted if you take damage when the shield has gone down.

Switching the elemental shield on and off only really works if you are facing a single opponent, or a few opponents with enough room to dodge enemy attacks / movement.
In missions and against certain bosses/monsters switching the elemental shield off is very hazardous to your health.
TagsNo tags attached.
Internal WeightFeature Suggestion

Relationships

related to 0006980 considering Mana-regeneration spell idea 

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Toll

Mar 28, 2012 3:38 am

reporter   ~0021454

The mana regen used to be dependant on max mana, but it was changed some versions ago (I can't find the exact version right now though). I can't remember the exact reasoning, but if you get enough mana with your suggested model, you'd be able to keep an elemental shield up constantly, so that might've been part of the reason.

Toll

Mar 28, 2012 3:40 am

reporter   ~0021455

Ah, found it in 0.577:

Previously, the mana recharge rate of characters was based on their max mana. This gave a double bonus to characters with tons of mana, and really penalized those with less mana. The net effect was that we had to make all characters have very similar mana pools, to avoid this being noticeable.

    This has now been changed so that the mana recharge rate is identical for all characters, meaning that there is more flexibility with the mana pool without it swinging SO wildly around in terms of power.

Terraziel

Mar 28, 2012 10:09 am

reporter   ~0021462

As a more general point part of the issue as it stands is that mana costs per second are horribly wrong, as noted in a mantis issue I posted a while ago, so you should actually be able to keep your shield up for far longer.

silverhound

Mar 28, 2012 10:37 am

reporter   ~0021464

Terraziel, could it be that it appears as if mana costs per second are horribly wrong because the mana stops regenerating?
Thats atleast how it came across to me with the shield.

Either way, standing around for a minute somewhere every couple minutes just to let your mana regenerate isn't really fun.
And having such a high mana already went at the cost of me ditching health and dam upgrades, so from my perspective it balances it out, i don't kill opponents faster, bosses are actually harder (the moment i run out of mana i have to dodge everything the boss throws at me till i have enough mana to both run a shield and shoot a couple shots at the boss again).

In comparison if i went for a high health + some dam upgrades, i can just continue firing at the boss occasionally taking a hit and occasionally taking out an enemy, because my mana expense are much lower (and my mana regen isnt killed off entirely).

That said, i don't want mana to regen while the shield is active, because that would effectively make someone invulnerable as long as they dont shoot their mana away.

Terraziel

Mar 28, 2012 10:43 am

reporter   ~0021466

Nah, the costs are just wrong, whilst doing nothing 510 mana should get you about 19 seconds of shield, it gets you about 9

silverhound

Mar 28, 2012 11:16 am

reporter   ~0021469

Just checked with stopwatch in hand:
1684 mana gives me 50 seconds
should be 62.

Difference isn't as big as you are claiming it to be (only 20%)
That is still something, but doesn't actually change the problem at hand.

Also timed how long it takes me to regen my mana from scratch: 45 seconds.

Like i said, the problem isn't how long i can keep my shield up, but how long i have to keep it down to keep it up that long, 45 seconds of recharging for 62 (currently 50) seconds of shielding without doing anything else that costs mana isn't exactly a lot.

Especially when you are fighting a boss or overlord or anything that is going to put a lot of hits on you, with 600 hp you can survive those hits, with 22 hp a single hit will kill me.

Archenium

Mar 28, 2012 1:12 pm

reporter   ~0021483

shield cost should definetly be fixed if thats not already on mantis, but perhaps an addition for the mana regen idea would be to start off every character with a Base mana regen, and increase it by a % of their maximum mana pool.

This would let you lower the mana regen as it is now, stoping low mana/high health classes from spamming powerful spells(my mp character can spam energy pulse no problem at .39 second cooldown), while also rewarding those who focus upgrades into mana, increasing their regen by a balanced amount to support their large mana pool.

As it is right now, theres really no point to getting a mana pool above 400-500. Using a mana cost enchant reduces most high spell costs to >100, and with the rather high mana regen makes it possible to spam one or two spells at a time for several minutes.

Of course this amount would have to be carefully monitered for balances sake, so the risk vs. reward of changing mana regen is up to the devs.

AragonLA

Mar 29, 2012 2:48 pm

reporter   ~0021597

Maybe we could get a head enchant that would increase mana regen?

BobTheJanitor

Mar 29, 2012 3:55 pm

reporter   ~0021600

Head enchants are intended to have no effect on your play style whatsoever. That allows you to use seeker enchants in head slots without nerfing yourself in some other way.

I'm in agreement with the fact that mana regen needs some loving though. For any monster that dies in a few shots, 100 mana is the same as 1000 mana, because you're using less than your maximum to kill it. For any boss that is going to take more than a mana bar to kill, 100 mana is still the same as 1000 mana because both characters are going to spend most of their time near empty and waiting to regen to fire their next shot.

Some kind of scaling regen rate for higher mana pools would mean that putting points into mana pool was actually worth something more than just a handful of extra shots at the start of a boss battle.

TechSY730

Apr 3, 2012 1:35 pm

reporter   ~0021775

So, basically, making mana regen be constant was done because mana regen being linear to max MP proved to be imbalanced.
Now it has been shown that having mana regen being constant is also imbalanced, in the opposite extreme.

Sounds like a compromise is in order, making mana regen scale sublinearly with max MP.
If needed, the base mana regen rate can go down to further emphasize this effect.

silverhound

Apr 6, 2012 6:28 am

reporter   ~0021836

Taking the base mana regen rate further down would be damaging to ^Dam and ^HP characters without being beneficial to ^Mana characters.

So far i dont see a reason to make ^Dam and ^HP characters worse, just a need to improve on the beneficial effects of ^Mana

In fact, if there needs to be a penalty to justify the mana regen increase, just lower the MP bonus gained from every upgrade by 25%

Atleast that way it wont damage the ^Dam and ^HP characters.

martyn_van_buren

Apr 9, 2012 4:15 pm

reporter   ~0021881

Are enchants that increase mana regen now? I think there ought to be, although they should definitely come in a slot that prevents you using some other very useful enchants.

MaxwellDemonic

Apr 12, 2012 5:01 pm

reporter   ~0021972

Hm, what about making mana regen scale with current mana. So Think of it this way, the more mana you use, the slower it regens. This gives incentive to level mana and be more tactical about your mana usage in longer fights.

Arnos

Apr 13, 2012 12:02 am

reporter   ~0021978

I like the suggestion that mana regeneration should increase with the total size of the pool, but the increase should be less then linear.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Mar 28, 2012 3:09 am silverhound New Issue
Mar 28, 2012 3:17 am silverhound Description Updated
Mar 28, 2012 3:18 am silverhound Description Updated
Mar 28, 2012 3:18 am silverhound Description Updated
Mar 28, 2012 3:38 am Toll Note Added: 0021454
Mar 28, 2012 3:40 am Toll Note Added: 0021455
Mar 28, 2012 7:47 am tigersfan Internal Weight => Feature Suggestion
Mar 28, 2012 7:47 am tigersfan Status new => considering
Mar 28, 2012 10:09 am Terraziel Note Added: 0021462
Mar 28, 2012 10:37 am silverhound Note Added: 0021464
Mar 28, 2012 10:43 am Terraziel Note Added: 0021466
Mar 28, 2012 11:16 am silverhound Note Added: 0021469
Mar 28, 2012 1:12 pm Archenium Note Added: 0021483
Mar 29, 2012 2:48 pm AragonLA Note Added: 0021597
Mar 29, 2012 3:55 pm BobTheJanitor Note Added: 0021600
Apr 3, 2012 12:17 pm silverhound Relationship added related to 0006980
Apr 3, 2012 1:35 pm TechSY730 Note Added: 0021775
Apr 6, 2012 6:28 am silverhound Note Added: 0021836
Apr 9, 2012 4:15 pm martyn_van_buren Note Added: 0021881
Apr 12, 2012 5:01 pm MaxwellDemonic Note Added: 0021972
Apr 13, 2012 12:02 am Arnos Note Added: 0021978
Apr 14, 2014 9:30 am Chris_McElligottPark Category Suggestion - Gameplay => Gameplay Idea