![[pl]](/mwf/flags/pl.png "Poland")
I got struck by a fresh idea recently. I was thinking about how the mana could be implemented to Open Clonk and how it already is in other games, such as Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale in the D&D conception. I know that everyone says it's too early, but some base concepts are needed.
So I come up with a fresh idea which would bring more tactical meaning to Clonk. First of all, the blueish mana bar wouldn't disappear entirely, but could be used in a different manner.
Now use your imagination: you are a mage, you know several incantations and how to focus your energy to actually make anything happen. Spelling/acting those spells require you to focus, which basically should drain your mana (I would call it "consciousness" this time) along with casting a spell. Spell casting could be limited to some time frames, for an example. The energy drains regularly during the cast. When your consciousness bar drains (example shown below) further and reaches the lowest volume, casting speed (if there's more mana needed than you got) reduces dramatically to wait for he lacking mana to regenerate. So, basically, each spell would have its casting speed (if the magic bridge would be implemented, it would be short to cast but would require high amount of energy in such a rapid way) and mana drain per second. Some spells could take the caster to high states, that trying to interrupt him would be impossible (but he would still receive damage though). What about mana-draining grenades, then? :)
The fun part is to watch the opponent's consciousness status; the way he casts spells and how often he does that. Well, I was thinking about the create-something magic. Summoning isn't easy and should require more advanced rules.
Second thing would be stamina.
As we all know, the noble knight gets tired by engaging in any battle. To parry any hit the enemy tries to make, he must use his muscles and his brain.
Basically any fight engagement would require him to drain stamina regularly + some penalty for active actions in the direct fight.
If the knight succesfuly hits the enemy with his sword (or tries to, but the penalty could be lower), he loses his energy. The final state is where the knight is too tired to defend himself properly (lowered damage?) and should run away to take a rest. In the exhaustion state (look at the bar, beyond the red line) he wouldn't be able to jump away and would climb with trouble (hey, why not implement it? Climbing the 90 degree wall all the way up looks unrealistic, this is why elevators and other neat stuff are made).
The next thing are the long-distance weapons, such as bows, crossbows, muskets, guns.
We all know that holding the bow in the ready-to-fire state is tiresome. You must hold your muscles all the time and free the arrow in the last moment. Stamina bar! It would drain constantly if your clonk is pointing his bow at the target.
How would the crossbow work then? Well, you have to load the bolt first. It would use some stamina (if you would do it by hand) to load it in the beginning, but then - well, you only have to release it! The bolt is locked already and does not require your attention.
What about the musket? Aiming with such a modern gun would require your focus. You must hold it tight to aim. It drains alot slower than in the bow or crossbow cases.
Well, I could've explained it better and revealed more interesting points, but temporarily I ran out of ideas.
So I come up with a fresh idea which would bring more tactical meaning to Clonk. First of all, the blueish mana bar wouldn't disappear entirely, but could be used in a different manner.
Now use your imagination: you are a mage, you know several incantations and how to focus your energy to actually make anything happen. Spelling/acting those spells require you to focus, which basically should drain your mana (I would call it "consciousness" this time) along with casting a spell. Spell casting could be limited to some time frames, for an example. The energy drains regularly during the cast. When your consciousness bar drains (example shown below) further and reaches the lowest volume, casting speed (if there's more mana needed than you got) reduces dramatically to wait for he lacking mana to regenerate. So, basically, each spell would have its casting speed (if the magic bridge would be implemented, it would be short to cast but would require high amount of energy in such a rapid way) and mana drain per second. Some spells could take the caster to high states, that trying to interrupt him would be impossible (but he would still receive damage though). What about mana-draining grenades, then? :)
The fun part is to watch the opponent's consciousness status; the way he casts spells and how often he does that. Well, I was thinking about the create-something magic. Summoning isn't easy and should require more advanced rules.
Second thing would be stamina.
As we all know, the noble knight gets tired by engaging in any battle. To parry any hit the enemy tries to make, he must use his muscles and his brain.
Basically any fight engagement would require him to drain stamina regularly + some penalty for active actions in the direct fight.
If the knight succesfuly hits the enemy with his sword (or tries to, but the penalty could be lower), he loses his energy. The final state is where the knight is too tired to defend himself properly (lowered damage?) and should run away to take a rest. In the exhaustion state (look at the bar, beyond the red line) he wouldn't be able to jump away and would climb with trouble (hey, why not implement it? Climbing the 90 degree wall all the way up looks unrealistic, this is why elevators and other neat stuff are made).
The next thing are the long-distance weapons, such as bows, crossbows, muskets, guns.
We all know that holding the bow in the ready-to-fire state is tiresome. You must hold your muscles all the time and free the arrow in the last moment. Stamina bar! It would drain constantly if your clonk is pointing his bow at the target.
How would the crossbow work then? Well, you have to load the bolt first. It would use some stamina (if you would do it by hand) to load it in the beginning, but then - well, you only have to release it! The bolt is locked already and does not require your attention.
What about the musket? Aiming with such a modern gun would require your focus. You must hold it tight to aim. It drains alot slower than in the bow or crossbow cases.
Well, I could've explained it better and revealed more interesting points, but temporarily I ran out of ideas.
![[ca]](/mwf/flags/ca.png "Canada")
I am reminded of Oblivion with this fatigue system. I don't have much time right now to write, but my only recollection of that was having to attack 1 thousand more times because I had low fatigue (attack did about 1/12th of normal damage)...
Well, I think you hit the point. Now I see where my idea did come from.
It doesn't have to be that strict... Let me think.
...Eh.
Okay, no lowered damage, but the parry and attack rate instead.
It would look a bit more like high rank Clonk vs low rank Clonk.
Oh, hell, now I recall. If there were any "Clonk ranks", bar capacities could be varrying.
It doesn't have to be that strict... Let me think.
...Eh.
Okay, no lowered damage, but the parry and attack rate instead.
It would look a bit more like high rank Clonk vs low rank Clonk.
Oh, hell, now I recall. If there were any "Clonk ranks", bar capacities could be varrying.
![[de]](/mwf/flags/de.png "Germany")
I think Oblivion made a great case for why fatigue is a bad idea as a gameplay mechanic. Basically, you are directly punishing the player for active playing.
In case we wanted to counter spamming, I'd propose to add some devestating counter-attacks and leave the punishing to the opponent. Seems a lot more fun to me.
In case we wanted to counter spamming, I'd propose to add some devestating counter-attacks and leave the punishing to the opponent. Seems a lot more fun to me.
My first impression is that I like the basic idea but think you overdo it a bit :)I think an (automatically) recharging mana/stamina bar for both, melee stuff and spells would be cool. But I wouldn't go that far and force the player to charge spells since that would make battles a lot slower; also I would not make basic movement use stamina (climbing f.e.)
>But I wouldn't go that far and force the player to charge spells since that would make battles a lot slower;
Well, it was already mentioned in IRC that magic mastery shouldn't rely on how quickly you can spam fireball... if you must wait a short time for your fatigue to recharge before you can cast again, that will implore the player to use the proper spell.
My task was to draw an overall idea and as I see, you polish it. :P
Well, that is why I wrote about recharging when out of mana.
The game should automatically decide by how much the casting speed should be reduced to maximize the effectiveness and launch (targeting still possible?) the spell as quickly as possible, the idea is not to drain the mana completely when it's out. You can be warned that you do not have enough mana before casting, though.
And okay, you're rite. Climbing should not require stamina, but when you're low on health and are tired after a battle, you shouldn't be able to quickly slip away from the battlefield. So, when the stamina level is low, you should climb slower.
Well, that is why I wrote about recharging when out of mana.
The game should automatically decide by how much the casting speed should be reduced to maximize the effectiveness and launch (targeting still possible?) the spell as quickly as possible, the idea is not to drain the mana completely when it's out. You can be warned that you do not have enough mana before casting, though.
And okay, you're rite. Climbing should not require stamina, but when you're low on health and are tired after a battle, you shouldn't be able to quickly slip away from the battlefield. So, when the stamina level is low, you should climb slower.
>..to use the proper spell.
As I said back then in IRC: what exactly is the right spell? Why does it make more sense to force the player to use two different spells when casting the first one twice would have made much more sense?
If a spell requires so few stamina/mana to be spammable, it has to be a very weak one and thus justify the low cost. The player should be allowed to decide for himself when it makes more sense to use the same spell twice or when to use different spells.
You could increase the mana cost by, like, 10% for each cast when you cast the same spell in a row or something - but any kind of charging or cooldown slows the game down
Haven't really been following the whole discussion, but just a quick idea I had when thinking about the current Fantasy: Maybe we could counter both the un-fun "bam, you're out of magic energy" and the equally un-fun "you can throw out as many spells as you want" (for the opponent) by making all spells scale.
Idea is to use the dreaded hold-mouse-down control for all magic spells - mana is drained as long as you hold the mouse, and the spell fires once you let the mouse go or you run out of mana. Spell power - whatever that might mean for each spell - should scale accordingly. I could imagine quite a few fun spells along these lines (fireball, teleport, shield, frog jump, ...).
Apologies if this has been proposed before, it just occured to me as a pretty obvious solution to the whole problem.
Idea is to use the dreaded hold-mouse-down control for all magic spells - mana is drained as long as you hold the mouse, and the spell fires once you let the mouse go or you run out of mana. Spell power - whatever that might mean for each spell - should scale accordingly. I could imagine quite a few fun spells along these lines (fireball, teleport, shield, frog jump, ...).
Apologies if this has been proposed before, it just occured to me as a pretty obvious solution to the whole problem.
Mouse holding just sucks, because you will almost always be active while charging the spell. There's a reason there were complaints about the Jar of Winds. Holding down the mouse while you're doing something else is annoying. In fact, I find holding down the mouse *always* annoying.The standard way of preventing spell spam would be to introduce cooldowns.
And by the way: In my opinion, spamming spells is fun. It's why I like Balance much more than e.g. those "strategic" Metal&Magic team fights.
Well, no idea how the jar of wind works, but the whole idea about having this kind of loading would be to have the Clonk immobile and prone to attacks for the time being. So no, you wouldn't do anything else besides aiming your spell. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it.
Especially because in contrast to cooldowns it actually allows spamming - it just makes the spells in questions less hard-hitting.
Especially because in contrast to cooldowns it actually allows spamming - it just makes the spells in questions less hard-hitting.
I understand your idea; it's just that I generally don't like this kind of scenario. Having a time of vulnerability to charge up a spell promotes camping playstyle, instead of more agiile, aggressive playing.
As I imagined it, charging the spell would commit you to actually casting it. So additional waiting would actually force you to burn through all of your mana. Additionally, if a quick counter-spell could make the charging (fatally?) cancel, we'd have a nice upside for the quicker player. As I said above, I consider counter-moves to be the most straigthforward solution to camping problems. Besides, the charging should by no means reach Kamehameha times - I'd propose something like a second for maximum spell power.
>I'd propose something like a second for maximum spell power.
You could not use any spells while toadjumping around your opponent then, though.
It is probably really funny for _some_ spells (like a changed fireball). But I would not make it the standard (since charging is always slower than not charging). You'd have some spells that become really powerful if you hold the mouse for two seconds (and that could probably have a counter since the enemy sees when you cast it) and "normal" spells like at the moment in CR
Two seconds seems to long to me. One second is about the maximum time you need to react to something unexpected - so normal gameplay should happen below that in order to reward looking ahead.
But yes, the "no delay" spell should not be completely useless, because having a spell go with a simple "pff" isn't fun either.
But yes, the "no delay" spell should not be completely useless, because having a spell go with a simple "pff" isn't fun either.
>But yes, the "no delay" spell should not be completely useless, because having a spell go with a simple "pff" isn't fun either.
But it would probably not fit the type of the spell. For example I would not make the lightning spell channeling (what, a lightning that deals more damage, great!) but make spells channeling where the channeling time does more than just increasing the damage. (I find damage-only spells boring). The Fireball for example could follow the target better the more you channeled, while a not channeled Fireball should (imo) be "completely" useless - or at least extremely weak so that you would not use it
And if we make the channeling stuff only one type of spells I would have nothing against allowing a bit longer channeling time for those (that's why I said 2 seconds - even the CR Fireball channels longer)
I'd some similar idea. But instead of making this mouse holding I had the idea that the mana simply is something which sets how powerfull you spells are. If you cast a spell when you have full mana it will make full damage. If you have no mana it will only do a quarter of the normal damage. We would need to combine it with some spell cooldown but that shouldn't be a problem I think (so the player cannot spam hundrets of 1/4 spells).
So, instead of fatigue affecting melee attack damage, magic-energy amount affects spell damage? Sounds a lot the same, and the prior was no fun... so I would have little hope of this being good.
No stamina at all! Clonk is something like a classic jump n' run game, always keeping stamina resources in mind would slow everything down. Just think about a Super Mario who gets week after too much jumping around! Special abilities like magic are another thing, but all general combat features have to work permanently properly, or it would cause too much anger for sure.
![[ua]](/mwf/flags/ua.png "Ukraine")
Agreed with Travis. We should not put any artificial limits to the running/jumping/fighting. (Working on a combat system is another issue that should be discussed somewhere else).
![[se]](/mwf/flags/se.png "Sweden")
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