Death to the Mana Bar!

[Thaius]

Sigh... sorry, but you're wrong. What you're saying is that games should abandon balance for the sake of being insanely powerful, and that simply doesn't work. An unbalanced game where you tear through your foes effortlessly is simply not fun. Perhaps there are better ways to do this than the mana bar, and there are other ways games have done it, but what you're talking about, unlimited power, simply wouldn't work. Balance is far more important than arbitrarily feeling like a badass: if you want that, go set your favorite game on easy.

 

[ZeroMachine]

"I don't know how to play a mage right and I suck at it, so I want them buffed to unfair levels."

Anyone else read that? Sorry, OP, but it honestly just sounds like you're not that good at being a mage.

You want unlimited god powers, go cheat in Oblivion or something. We like challenge in our games, and playing a mage presents a damn fun one if you know what you're doing.

I've always thought the mana bar should be replaced by a fatigue system. Like, the more spells you cast in a row, the tireder you'll get, and the weaker you'll spells will be. That would make more sense to me.

And yeah, I clicked here cause I thought you were talking about Yahtzee's bar. Good to see I wasn't the only one!

That's actually a pretty awesome idea... also, your avatar is fuckin' sick, if a little contradictory

 

[kickyourass]

EDIT: I had a nice long post typed up but then I saw this.

"I don't know how to play a mage right and I suck at it, so I want them buffed to unfair levels."

Anyone else read that? Sorry, OP, but it honestly just sounds like you're not that good at being a mage.

You want unlimited god powers, go cheat in Oblivion or something. We like challenge in our games, and playing a mage presents a damn fun one if you know what you're doing.

Which is so much better then what I had in mind I thought I'd just quote this and say, "This is something I agree with."

 

[Ytinasni]

This is easy to fix: No mana bar, hence unlimited spells, and to counter all you fight are dragons and pitfiends.

More fun. All you fight are golems.

 

[BoredDragon]

The idiocy of the OP astounds me.

You want a game in which you are totally over-powered to the point that enemy players can't do anything because of your unlimited amount of spells? Ok we can make that realistic as long as you don't mind that taking one stab wound from a melee attack will kill you.

The thing is, what you're suggesting isn't realistic. Wizards get tired after casting a lot of spells because they take energy to perform just like swinging a sword will get tiring after a while. Now if only we could visually represent that to the player so that they would know when their character is too tired to cast anymore spells. Maybe we could make it like the health bar, but have it represent the players energy rather than health. Now what shall we call this?

Besides, if you want to go back to the Runescape method of spell-casting be my guest. I just hope your character is fucking loaded so he can buy all the necessary runes.

 

[Nick Angelici]

Balance is king. Without balance the game world would be...well, unbalanced. You can't have unlimited magic, because it would be unbalanced.

BALANCE!

Plus, it's good enough just to have it recharge, like in Oblivion, or just have the abilities themselves recharge, like in Mass Effect.

This, this guy right here, listen to him, he knows what hes saying

 

[zane224]

I like the idea of a slowly refilling mana bar, and a limit based on your own strength. Its the best mechanical way to represent magical ability. It should be like any other skill; it has to be trained and practiced to be good at it.

The best depiction of it I feel is in the book "the Magicians" or in the Halcyon blithe series. In them casting magic takes a toll on the person. too many spells can cause a headache and make you tired. Casting a spell beyond your ability can kill you.

I also like in the Blithe series how spells need a counter balance. Want to teleport something to you? you have to either replace it with something of similar mass or expend a huge amount of energy.

 

[DasDestroyer]

It's all about balance. You can have infinite mana, but then you'd need to cast spells over and over and over and over and over again to do any sort of significant damage, or you can have powerful spells which do insane damage, but have a limitation as to how many you can cast in a certain period of time. Personally, I prefer the latter.

 

[Voodoomancer]

This is easy to fix: No mana bar, hence unlimited spells, and to counter all you fight are dragons and pitfiends.

More fun. All you fight are golems.

Dragon Golems!

 

[elvor0]

Most worlds with magic in explain why you can't just be god like and cast magic all the time without limits. Generally it's because casting magic is mentally and physically tiring, or even painful in some worlds. The mana bar is a digital representation of that.

 

[Mister Benoit]

I thought this was going to be about Yahtzees bar in Australia, I am actually kind of disappointed as it would have made an interesting topic.

Ditto, was kind of wondering what he could be angry about. Unless he lost at Mario Kart multiple times while drunk, went on a rage and got kicked out and is now raging online about how they're unfair.

 

[TornadoFive]

"I don't know how to play a mage right and I suck at it, so I want them buffed to unfair levels."

Anyone else read that? Sorry, OP, but it honestly just sounds like you're not that good at being a mage.

You want unlimited god powers, go cheat in Oblivion or something. We like challenge in our games, and playing a mage presents a damn fun one if you know what you're doing.

I've always thought the mana bar should be replaced by a fatigue system. Like, the more spells you cast in a row, the tireder you'll get, and the weaker you'll spells will be. That would make more sense to me.

And yeah, I clicked here cause I thought you were talking about Yahtzee's bar. Good to see I wasn't the only one!

That's actually a pretty awesome idea... also, your avatar is fuckin' sick, if a little contradictory

What's contradictory about it? It clearly represents a multi-national company dedicated to preserving humanities existance, but instead of killing their enemies, they capture them for testing! All in the name of science! Pretty straight-forward!

 

[sheogoraththemad]

like a lot of others I thought this was about yahtzees bar, that bar is one of the reasons why I would like to go to Australia.
WOOT!!! 800 comments!!!

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I'm sorry, I had to:

Spoiler

It is a bit weird that health has undergone such a large change, to a "realistic" regenerating strawberry camera-jam, yet the mana bar has never really been challenged, and why is it always blue?

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

I prefer the mana bar to the D&D system of "You can use X number of spells per day, you run out, oh well, good thing wizards have such high STR and CON right? Oh... you don't? Sorry"

They do if you are an eldritch knight, or Edwin Odesseiron (at least with CON, if I'm not mistaken)

I prefer the D&D spell preparation system more. I can have my tiefling sorcerer reserve all her power evocations, or let loose in a blaze of glory.

 

[jonyboy13]

Fuck strategy and tactics! Fuck planning and using spells according to enemy weaknesses to save mana! Lets just spam fire balls and summon countless demons.

/Sarcasm

I like the mana bar, it's a great balance in MMOs together with cooldowns.
You do realize there are a lot of games that don't use your regular mana bar or any bar at all right?

 

[Canid117]

I had an idea the other day. If the mana bar instead operated like something of a mix between mana and a shared cool down. It would regenerate very quickly even in combat. You would have to choose between keeping your bar low but the output of spells constant or you could only fire a few spells that are extremely destructive. The small spells would be weak but you would spam them like there was no tomorrow and the strong spells would keep your damage would from being consistent but the few spells you did fire would be incredibly damaging. As I recall the Rogue's energy bar in Wow worked kind of like this. It isn't that different but it might be interesting.

 

[00slash00]

I, as a dedicated RPG fan have often been dumbfounded by magic systems in games. Why in a world that calls itself High Fantasy do I have the magical capabilities of a real life magician? When SO much of modern fantasy is based on the work of Tolkien why do I "run out of spells"? Gandalf didnt have this problem! Even HARRY POTTER didnt have this GLARING HORRID limitation! I speak of course of the mana bar that seemingly age old mechanic that has you unable to summon up so much as a puff of smoke at just the wrong instant to lead to your demise at the hands of that smelly warrior! While recent games have gone the route of using cooldowns instead I have to ask why limit it at all? For game balance? The ENTIRE point of magic is to be unbalanced. I want to summon skeleton armies from my fallen foes and conjure firestorms to destroy cities in an instant! I dont want to retreat helplessly while waiting for my magical talents to recharge! So.... who feels they have the wit to finally defeat this horrid blemish on modern gaming? Who among you can help put this flawed concept to final rest? WHO AMONG YOU CAN...oh screw it! Anybody got any ideas?

yes...and since most of the main characters in lotr didnt die, we shouldnt have health either, right? if having to budget your spells is too hard for you, maybe you should lower the difficulty. i consider games that dont have mana or have mana that gradually recharges, to be a product of the simplifying and dumbing down of gaming

 

[Knusper]

As with pretty much every other person on here, I thought you were talking about Yahtzee + Co.'s bar.

O.T. If you hate mana bars so much, play with god mode on.