Poll: How do you feel about MP (Magic Points)?

[Erana]

I personally like Star Ocean's idea of some skills being related to the rechargable "fury" bar, with the quick and powerful skills in a magic menu.
You regain a small amount of magic every victory, so if you cast a healing spell once every four battles or so, you'd be in good shape.

 

[ZeroMachine]

I prefer a pool of MP to the "you can use this spell X many times today". That always annoyed me, though I could see it being cool and immersive in some situations.

As for how it recovers, I'm quite partial to the "it recovers very slowly, but you can use healing items or rest to get it all back faster" route.

 

[Quilly]

I always play wizards in RPGs, and I was surprised to see the other day that Fable 2 has no mana at all. There's charge times, and that's it.

And as a wizard, that's the best thing I can ask for a magic system.
If the warrior can swing his blade endlessly, I want endless fire balls. I don't mind them doing little damage, I just don't want to keep drinking, reading, being limited to X times a day or having to do math so I can do more spells with the same MP. That's why, as much as I loved Baldur's Gate 2 (which I bough after comparing which RPG at the moment had more spells), I will always be marked by the distracting and ilogical times I just shut a door behind an enemy so I could sleep and recover my spells.

"But some magic powers are too powerful!"

Well, warriors have special attacks too. I'm not saying asking to be able to spam my Kill-O-Matic spell, and that's why my vote goes to mana regeneration. It find that kind magic fatigue system the most natural for gameplay. But it's my wizard heart speaking.

 

[Jenova65]

If there are mana points, I prefer reasonably priced items (or as in Star Ocean, items that you can cook and so on to recover mp) and a walk around recharge, cos otherwise long dungeons are a pain. They give you a cool ability and then suck the fun out of it by making you resort to simple 'attack', til you get to the boss just to preserve your magic!

 

[DuplicateValue]

I'm a big fan of Oblivion's system, where it regenerates quicker depending on your skill.

But I don't mind the potion/rest type either, like in FFVII.

 

[veloper]

Other:

I prefer my party fully healed, charged and everything for every encounter. I like big, difficult mobs.
I don't like filler crap that you need to go soft on to conserve your spells for something harder somewhere down the road.

Limited charges, timers and mana is all fine by me if it's just during combat.

 

[badgersprite]

There has to be a balance so that magic-using characters are self-sufficient without being overpowered. A system that worked well was in text-based MUDs where potions to restore mana were plentiful, but you could only sip them again after a certain amount of time had passed. I don't remember now if they restored a fixed amount of mana, or a fixed percentage, but it restored a lot so it was pretty useful.

It varies according to the game. Having regenerating magic really suited Oblivion but I think in JRPGs it would make magic really overpowered and remove any sense of a challenge from the game (which is bad considering that's a criticism JRPGs often endure).

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

I never understood downtime in RPGs. The goal of a video game is to have fun, running out of mana/magic is not fun, and spending time to regenerate your mana or drink potions is not fun, so why is that system used SO much? I'd much rather have a resource that runs out quickly, but also regenerates very quickly (under 20 seconds from empty to full, for example).

 

[Undeleted]

DnD style magic (the Vancian system) is the best. Memorizing spells is cool and prevents mages from casting ten earth-shattering spells in a row. This way some semblance of balance is kept between high-level mages and high-level fighters. It also adds an element of preparation and requires the player to use foresight, selecting spells that he predicts will be useful throughout the next day. DnD owns.

 

[WodashGSJ]

I really liked the mana system in the Atelier Iris games. For those who haven't played them, the main character is an alchemist who can extract mana of different types from objects in the gameworld - red mana from flames, green mana from plants, etc. They can then use that mana in recipes they've learned to create spell items. The limits on what spells you can cast are A) the recipes you've learned and B) what mana you've bothered to collect, so it becomes largely a matter of choice whether you stock up on lots of spells or not.

 

[The Madman]

I prefer the old D&D style magic system as well.

Having to memorize and prepare spells adds a certain level of strategy to playing as a caster class. You've got to think ahead and be prepared, scope out your potential enemies and prepare spells according to what you think will be best. I like that, it adds a tactical edge to the class.

It's also part of what differentiates a spell caster from any other class. Mana is like a glorified ammunition pile, you're just a showy archer. I dislike that! I enjoy the concept of a wizard or mage or whatever as a man (or woman) of near unlimited power who're nevertheless constrained by what they can have prepared, the very human limits of the mind, as opposed to some omniscient puddle of blue magic that you need to keep topped off. Mana potions for example are just silly.

The system can also make for an extremely satisfying low to high level experience. In Baldur's Gate for example a mage is useless at low levels, they really are. But as you progress you gain a larger library of spells, you learn to have more and more memorized at a time till near the end you're capable of calling down the heavens themselves and summoning demons from beyond. All within reason however, as with mana all you need is enough mana potions and you can just spam cast meteors and demons till, well, there's nothing special about it anymore.

 

[Ultress]

I like the passive restoration, it keeps thing from being to easy and you have access to magic and don't have to horde magic points for that one boss.

 

[Flying-Emu]

I hate the DnD system.

Other than that I don't know.

Odd, because I love the idea of Spells/Day.

Although I prefer the Sorcerer's innate, spontaneous casting to the Wizard's requirement to memorize each spell he plans to use that day.

 

[Darth Brownie]

So I finally started playing Persona 4. People kept telling me that it was so much better than Persona 3 because they removed the fatigue system. Yeah, but they also removed the easy SP recovery (Persona's mana). This, to put it mildly, sucks. Instead they put in a system where you can restore your SP for an astronomical price, which means if you want to complete the dungeons in a timely (in-game) fashion you need to spend hours of real time farming for cash just to get your SP back. Magic is critical in Persona's combat systems, btw.

So it had me thinking, aren't limited mana systems like so ten years ago? I loves me my japanese RPGs but I'm starting to feel all games should move towards the Bioware-style of cooldown timers or quick non-combat regeneration. Maybe I'm the only one?

Personally I havent got that problem with Persona 4, if you want to keep your Sp, just use physical attacks

To go with the poll, I like to have mana points to regenerates at slow rate + potions and resting

 

[Kasawd]

I like the way they do it in D&D because it allows players to get a feel for the differing casting classes.

For my video games, though, I enjoy the mana point system.

 

[Space Spoons]

As much as I love the traditional D&D system, I can see it would get annoying to have to stay at an inn to recharge your spellcaster's arsenal. I'm sure there are some of us, like myself, who enjoy the idea of having to conserve and be judicious with magic, but for most players, it probably just isn't going to cut it.

Given that, I would go with the Cooldown system, simply because it puts me in the in-game world more efficiently. When my mage can't cast a "Heal Light Wounds" spell, I want it to be because he's exhausted from that "Greater Shock of Frost" spell he just used, not because one arbitrary number happens to be lower than it needs to be.

 

[Knight Templar]

I like the recharge system, or cooldown as you called it. Each spell must be recharged before it can be re-used, of course some spells would need a very short/long recharge but it's still a good system.

 

[duchaked]

I'm used to the stuff Final Fantasy uses, tho some other options (regen) would be quite nice

 

[ShadeOfRed]

I do love me some regenerating mana.
I really hate the charge system because if in a one red wizard run of FF1 you needed to lay back on the mild doomsday spells to save room for the healing ones, making it very risky to anything involving magic.