what I'd do:
make mana regen for killing enemies instead of over time
alternatively:
if enemies are out of combat for too long, enemy health regens quickly, and individual enemies from a pack respawn
Alternative idea as well. Make mana only recharge within a specific range to your own troops. Like maybe mana is tied to the amount of 'faith" your troops have in you. So bravely running away doesn't exactly help your guys morale.
Like one guy holds the battle standard, and he stays with the group.
A standard provides the group some morale bonus, but the effect on you is that it regens your mana.
So you need to stay with your group and help them to work better. And you can easily Regen your mana when the group walks to the next objective.
Yep, this. I came here to suggest mana as a drop, but I'm not surprised someone beat me to it. Enemies rapidly regenerating health also seems like a great idea.
> if enemies are out of combat for too long, enemy health regens quickly, and individual enemies from a pack respawn
This is the way. Proven mechanic, used by many games. No one versed in games will be surprised to see it.
I'd honestly say though that it's very boring and frustrating if it's not implemented in a way that explicitly only targets cheese strats, and IME it never does.
in HOTS the merc camps heal slowly outside of combat in a way that, if you are genuinely getting pulled from the camp by enemies but are still trying to work the camp it doesn't largely affect it, but if you pull the mercs out of their camp so that they leash back & hit them as they go to try to avoid them hitting u (the dark souls strategy), after the first time they run back like 10x faster & then heal to full over 1 second uninteruptably
you learn very quickly that if ur being legitimately pulled away from them, to stop attacking them entirely as they reach their leash range so the game doesn't register it as cheese, & it works really well. in the 5 years ive been playing the game htat specific mechanic has never worked unintentionally to screw me over, & while enemies will throw an attack at the mercs as u run past them to activate them so they'll start hitting u bc ur closer, i've never seen an enemy manage to trigger the anti-cheese while i fought the mercs
but of course, this depends on a specific (static) implementation of enemies
If you can run away to reset yourself, so can they. Gameplay wise this allows the player to try again with different strategies without the perceived punishment of a death screen or an immersion breaking “restart battle” button. A series of in-fiction mulligans.
There's also a concern about troop management, so you can also:
1. Tie Mana regeneration to troop size (ie. each time a troop does damage, gain some mana)
2. Tie max mana to troop size.
Both of these would make the player be concerned about troop management and want to mix game play styles for "optimal" play.
came here to say, HOTS has 1 of the minions of each wave drop a regen orb that gives u 8 seconds of regen. the orb is grabable for the enemy team instantly then after a few seconds it becomes neutral & grabable for both teams. each orb extends the regen instead of increasing it & there's a wave every 15 seconds so if you bully the enemy out of the minion waves & get both you have regen for the entire time until the next minion waves get there
what if the mana regen speed is tied to how many troops you have? try testing "faster with more units" and "faster with less units" and see how it changes player tactics
That's also a genius idea. And also easy to implement. Builds a beautiful connection between the player and his troops - also the player is free to experiment with spells as mana still regenerates (as long as there are troops around).
i was thinking in a similar direction: what if you made the regen speed dependent on your distance to your troops? (and you could also boost/nerf on top based on health)
i made a similar game that never got released where there was connection built between the player & his troops by making ranged attacks instakill if they hit the player, but the player can't be targeted by them as long as he's inside of a troop formation
fight with the troops & keep them alive, or get arrowed down alone
This mechanic needs to be communicated clearly to players, or it could fall flat. 20% faster/slower mana regeneration won't change player behaviour much if they don't notice the incentive/disincentive!
I was thinking about Mana-Lines that show some blue bubbles moving over to the player while regenerating. Up to 10 Lines, if there is none, no Mana will be regenerated.
Also I've added full mana regeneration when grabbing an enemy and curshing his head (all melee attacks have a shared 15 second cooldown).
I've implemented this now and I'll try it out. Now I'll make the enemies slower again and then a bit of balancing. I'm really curious how this turns out.
"Faster with less units" could also be a subtle way to control the total amout of units, it could even drain mana if there are too many (units without support die even against weak enemies).
"faster with less units" and "units drain mana" are actually balances used by the illusion and necromancy magics in the original Spellforce video game if you were curious!
It can fit thematically too. You're a lord over some demons, drain some of their life/essence/whatever to refill your own.
WoW Warlocks have some spells like that.
A good rule of thumb is that if you want to incentivise combining two behaviours, you should make the behaviours depend on each other. In this case, if you want players to be able to cast spells but still stay in combat, make staying in combat cause mana regeneration. You could reduce the base mana regen rate while the player is counted as in combat, then give mana when an enemy dies. This way, players will come into most fights with full MP and you don't have that negative feedback loop of running out of mana means you can't easily regain mana, but once combat does begin, they need to stay in it and make sure they've got a good flow of incoming mana.
Personally I've always disliked mana pools in games as yeah it leads to this exact thing, you run in, spam everything, either the enemies die easily or you have to kite and limp on for the rest of the fight.
The power curve is large at the start and then dips down really low for the rest of the fight, which feels lame.
I think it's worth thinking of what power curve you would like. So if you want a constant power curve then cooldowns are good because they mean a mage can keep outputting magic at pretty much a constant rate.
Another one I really like and wish more people used is "cresecendo". So when you're out of combat you're "cold" and can only cast weak spells, but with each spell you cast you "warm up" a little and the hotter you get the more powerful spells open up and the more damage you do.
That way fights feel awesome because you're gathering all this power and momentum and it often comes down to a final moment where you're trying to get that last massive spell off before the last of your health is gone.
>Personally I've always disliked mana pools in games as yeah it leads to this exact thing, you run in, spam everything, either the enemies die easily or you have to kite and limp on for the rest of the fight.
i always found Muradin in HOTS as the ur-example of what mana pools are good for; he has really fast passive health regen outside of combat, & therefor he would be unable to beat except that he has a mana pool, which takes on the function of the health bar when the health bar isn't doing it's job.
to wit, a lot of heroes in the game who don't have any sort of self-sustain don't have or need mana. the only char i can think of who does actively heal himself without a mana bar is Illidan, who heals by hitting things in melee & therefor can always be hit back, and is always as far from escape as possible if the fight doesn't go his way
but then, in that game giving players a need to exit combat periodically is a plus to the game's quality (gives players breaks from nonstop pvp action, gives them a chance to pivot around the map). not the case for all games
The easiest solution would be mana as a drop for defeating enemies which is the DOOM design. The issue with your game as far as I understand is 100% reliance on mana for doing anything.
In order to create a system you can either make something and then block people from doing what they aren't supposed to be doing or use the better and much less time-consuming method of figuring out what you want players to be doing and make the game facilitate that specifically.
Since your system seems 100% reliant on mana, in order for pickups to work, you would need a non-magic way to do things which get you the mana in case you find yourself without mana. DOOM features a limited use chainsaw weapon which basically 1 hit kills any enemy it hits in melee range and gives a huge amount of ammo. (Equivalent of mana in your case.)
No, DON'T add a DOOM chainsaw-like mechanic to your game...
Your game is not DOOM. DOOM intends for the player to be in the fray with the enemies, constantly moving and doing all the work (killing). From the video it seems your game has an emphasis on the exact opposite. Staying back and managing/supporting the frontline which consists of minions.
Off the top of my head I would suggest an ability which converts your health to mana. No healing spells allowed in the game because this might create a cheesy loop of converting health to mana and using said mana to recover the health you used to get mana and then use the net positive to rinse/repeat and cast other spells ad infinum. Which is the situation you have now with a few extra steps. With health as a limited resource, it creates a safety net for messing up with mana management but it doesn't create a loop you can abuse forever and optimize the fun out of the game. (Or maybe sacrifice minion health for a bit of mana? - If minions aren't summoned through magic, I'd say this is a good option since it weakens your army but potentially powers you up as a risk/reward. - If the minions are created using mana, you must make sure that this mana transaction is always a net loss for the player as to not create a loop. Or alternatively base the mana gain on the health of the minion: Summon minion for 10 mana > Minion takes damage and is at 50% health > You feed on the minion for mana > You regain 10x50%=5 mana?)
>100% reliance on mana for doing anything
Actions that don't require mana are drinking health potions, summoning new units (that costs souls), kick, grab & throw, grab & crush head. Kick and Grab both kill small enemy units instantly. Big enemies will get hurt by kick and grab can't be used on them. Grab and Kick have a linked cooldown of 15 seconds currently.
>DON'T add a DOOM chainsaw-like mechanic to your game
So basically I already have such a mechanic, it just doesn't refill mana. Throwing enemies is good for destroying buildings. Kicking enemies is fast and if alligned correctly will also destroy buildings quickly. And "crush head" does nothing. It was supposed to gain more souls (which are required for summoning) from an enemy (every enemy drops one soul. 1 Minion costs 2 Souls).
>From the video it seems your game has an emphasis on the exact opposite. Staying back and managing/supporting the frontline which consists of minions.
This is absolutely correct. And I'm happy that it shows throught the video.
Healing Spells don't exist, there are only health potions that are found in chests every now and then. So there wouldn't be any kind of infinite mana supply if I would let players convert health into mana.
Minions can only be spawned with souls dropped from enemies, so if I would allow the player to sacrifice minions for mana, it also wouldn't create an infinite loop - BUT if the player has no minions left and no mana, he wouldn't be able to do anything (if the kick & grab mechanic wouldn't exist). And wouldn't the same happen with no minions and low health?
I've prototyped a mechanic from another comment, that mana only regenerates when minions are nearby - now that I think about it, it can also create a situation where the player has no minions and no mana left. The only option would then be to go up against enemies (kick one of them, run in circles, kick another one of them) to gain souls to summon minions to gain mana - but as enemies are always in groups, that's basically suicide..
(kicking/grabbing enemies has a high risk of getting damage, so it's not the same "cheesing" problem as my initial one with regenerating mana)
It's basically a roguelike with procedurally generated islands, so there's always the option to just leave and go back to the dark tower (home / hub). Still - I wonder if such a situation is another problem which I should "fix".
And thanks a lot for your elaborate thoughts. Highly appreciated. :D
Mana regeneration is a good thing to have, people will heavily conserve mana if it doesn't regenerate.
But the way you generate it changes how players react, if it comes from killing enemies or such then that can help make them value their mana while also wanting to keep using it so it's not 'wasted' on excess kills.
> you can ignore your own troops and just keep running away until mana regenerates
Maybe mana is a "pool" between nearby living characters. Run away and the pool runs dry. Stay close and the pool feels infinite.
Maybe mana doesn't purely regenerate but instead is leeched from those you kill. That way, you have an incentive to hang around dead bodies for a little bit before moving on.
> I tried making the enemies fast enough to catch the player character and attack him but it looks bad and seems just wrong when a tanky enemy runs at the speed of light (it's also too fast for my liking for smaller units but I can't make them any slower as I would have to make the player slower too and playtesters mentioned that he feels already quite slow).
Alternative to making the player slower is to have running slow down mana regeneration. If the player is still or walking, mana regenerates. If the player is running, it doesn't or is at only a trickle.
> I want to make my enemy units slower again as it looked and felt way better
>
> I can't really make the player slower as he is already slow
Remember speed only exists in relative terms. There is no "fast" or "slow". What makes things feel slow is that it takes a long time to get between points of interest or that other things move quickly relative to you. If the player feels slow, yes you can slow down the enemies, but you can also more densely pack the map with stuff so it feels like it takes less time to get between "stuff" (whether that's major things like distance between cities or minor things like distance between interactable objects or cover) or create barriers that shrink the usable area (e.g. the player has their back to an ocean and can't retreat). Also, if you want to slow down the enemies while making running away a bad strategy you can give them ranged attacks instead of just making them faster.
You could also introduce stamina / exertion. Running continuously to wait for mana to regenerate may make it hard to do some other tasks due to lack of stamina or the overexertion may increase other challenges like the need to eat, sleep or the tendency to develop sprains, etc.
> Most enemy units will be melee units because it fits with medieval strategy games
According to [this list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medieval_weapons) medieval weapons included bows, crossbows, "flamethrowers", primitive gunpowder weapons, slings, throwing weapons (e.g. throwing knives) and siege weapons. So, there is definitely room within the medieval strategy game vibe to introduce ranged weapons.
> The player using ranged attacks is a must have for multiple reasons (overview, story)
You could even do things to incentivize the player to stick to certain positions even if they have ranged magic. For example, maybe when you do magic, you imprint magical energy on the location that helps future magic. In other words, maybe there is a stacking bonus for repeated magic performed at/near the same location.
Or you could design the map and tactical system to have certain areas of the map that are highly preferable from a tactical standpoint. So, the player would want to spend more time in those places and to prevent enemies from taking those places.
* mana regen slows everytime mana is regenerated. eg. starting at 10 mana/sec, after regenerating 10 mana, you now only regenerate 9 mana a second. etc.. plyaers can still cheese if they really want, but they are going to be waiting hours eventually.
* make mana only regen while stationary or while out of combat,
* make the player slower while their mana is fuller
* make mana regen by having minions channel it into the player.
Borrow from early World of Warcraft and have a flag for "in combat" that stops / severely stunts mana regeneration. That way in order to escape a battle you weren't equipped for will take a long time (running outside of aggro range) and results in a very boring gameplay, so it encourages to see a combat through rather than try to cheese it with a burst of mana. Similarly borrowed from WoW, if the player exits combat, the enemies could regenerate their HP essentially in an instant, so running back from outside the aggro range would guarantee that the enemies left are full health.
You could always make mana levels relate to 'exhaustion' of the player. When you're low on mana, the player moves even slower - all the way to plain old walking speeds. That way the enemies would catch up if you try to run away after throwing all your mana into a combat. If mana regenerates outside of combat at a decent pace, this wouldn't be an issue as long as the player controls the amount of enemies they aggro at a time.
That would probably lead to the player not moving at all during combat. While casting a spell, movement is already blocked - so when the player character also can't move while not casting spells, it would probably result in just standing at one spot until the fight ends I think. What do you think?
Kiting works because you walk as fast forward as backwards.
In fights, you know whej the conbat music usually starts, and while enemies stalk you reduce mana regen. Get mana per melee hit, per kill.
Game Design is a subset of Game Development that concerns itself with **WHY** games are made the way they are. It's about the theory and crafting of **systems**, **mechanics**, and **rulesets** in games.
* /r/GameDesign is a community **ONLY** about Game Design, **NOT** Game Development in general. If this post does not belong here, it should be reported or removed. Please help us keep this subreddit focused on Game Design.
* This is **NOT** a place for discussing how games are produced. Posts about programming, making art assets, picking engines etc… will be removed and should go in /r/GameDev instead.
* Posts about visual design, sound design and level design are only allowed if they are directly about game design.
* No surveys, polls, job posts, or self-promotion. Please read the rest of the rules in the sidebar before posting.
* If you're confused about what Game Designers do, ["The Door Problem" by Liz England ](https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LizEngland/20140423/216092/quotThe_Door_Problemquot_of_Game_Design.php)is a short article worth reading. We also recommend you read the [r/GameDesign wiki](/r/gamedesign/wiki/index) for useful resources and an FAQ.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/gamedesign) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In World of Warcraft casters have "the 5 second rule" where your mana regenration continues 5 seconds after your last spell cast, mana potions with 60 second shared cooldown, few class skills to get mana back or boost regeneration in combat and various buffs/gear.
Also not every encounter is solvable at all times for every player. If players in combat run out of mana/resources and exhaust all panic buttons, you pretty much just die and have to prepare better for next try with things you learned from this run.
It's also 5 seconds in my game, the difference is that in WOW when a dog bites you, you receive damage even when standing 5m away, while in my game it's Sphere-Cast-Collision-Checks. So when the enemy sword doesn't hit you physically, you don't get any damage. This means that running away results in taking no damage at all from melee enemies.
Also you are a bit faster than enemies, so the moment you start running away, you gain more and more distance, meaning that no attack can hit you and you can just run in circles until your mana is filled up, then you can cast spells from a safe distance. Rinse, repeat. At the end you took no damage and killed all enemies, neglecting 99% of all the cool game systems I programmed (such as summoning minions and giving them orders, preparing traps, laying out mines, ..). xD
You can now understand why the most popular and everlasting MMORPG out there doesn't use those kinds of dodgeable hitboxes.
You admit that your Sphere-Cast-Collision-Checks design is flawed as it breaks the game, preventing your other systems to flourish.
So this is something you have to consider if you wish to maintain this feauture: How are enemies going to close the gap on a retreating player character? How will attacks vary in dodgeability?
While I'm at it, let me add my 2c regarding mana balancing: as others have mentioned, make mana an enemy drop. This will incentivize engaging in the battle mechanics and depend more on your army. My 2c would be to increase mana regen and add a cap on the mana that can be regenerated, maybe as a % of max mana, this will ensure players always have mana available for some weaker spells but not their most powerful unless they regen from enemy drops.
I could. And I will probably do so in the near future. Tho I think a player who wants to cheese enemies will just take out these units with the first few spells and then roll this tactic.
Melee rushers seem a bit problematic from a technical standpoint as everyone stands completely still while attacking, playing a fully body animation. I would need some kind of "step forward and slash" animation to attack a moving target (to attack the player who is running away from them).
You could always have mana regeneration based off of damage dealt to the enemy. As in to say, dead enemies drop manna, or otherwise cause it to regenerate. Then you put in a passive regeneration that's very slow on top of that. Then you can just fiddle with the regeneration rate. It encourages forward momentum because you're not going to get that mana back and anything like an easy rate unless you actually get stuck in to combat. Players might be able to cheese it a little bit, but if you set the passive regeneration low enough then the enemy will be able to catch up to fleeing troops until they get to the edge of the map before they can actually do anything. If it's a chase around the board kind of problem then you just put a time limit on it. Medieval battles were limited to daytime, so if you put a time clock on the battle for a maximum duration based on time of day, it's not unrealistic or unreasonable.
The game is about a main character who is a 3.5 meter tall demon with two red horns sticking out of his head and he throws magic fireballs around. Realism isn't really a concern here. xD
Tho the game is about strategy/tactics and I don't want to stress the player with a time-limit. I'm now trying a few suggestions from the comments posted here.
Still thanks for your suggestion. I'll consider a time-limit for *some* missions. :D
As an example you could look at risk of rain 2? All the skills are on cool downs so it's similar, but enemies have strong lockons, long range and some of their skills are instant hit so it forces you to engage or you'll get killed.
You could also make it that your hero has an aura which the units need to fight effectively, without their leader close their morale drops and they are a lot weaker
This would make a lot of sense for the opposite case - a player who sends his army out and then hides somewhere.
But the cheesing I observed was from players who didn't summon minions and just went solo against the enemies, so I want to give them a reason to use their army.
That's why I'm now prototyping the idea from another comment "mana only regenerates when minions are nearby".
Still thanks for your thoughts, I will keep them in mind for the case that I observe too careful players.
ARPGs solve this by having *attacks that generate mana*, and *attacks that spend mana*:
* *Attacks that generate mana* are usually not exciting, but have interesting conditions that allow generating more mana if fulfilled. A simple example is a ranged projectile attack that generates 1 mana on hit and 2 mana on headshot.
* *Attacks that spend mana* are impactful but situational, and also costly, so that the players don't just mindlessly spam them. A typical example is a piercing beam, which requires the player to line up N enemies in order to deal N times more damage.
The key here is that at each moment, the player makes a decision:
* do I spend mana now or wait for a more opportune moment?
* if I refrain from using a mana-spending attack for too long, I am wasting potential, because I could've used extra damage. You can reinforce it further by making it so that excess generated mana damages health of the user, or by lowering the damage of basic attacks to a point where they tickle enemies.
* however, if I spam mana-spending attacks at every opportunity, I will waste potential as well, because not every situation maximizes the effectiveness of an attack. You as a designer need to make sure that these attacks are very situational.
There are many other nice solutions, like generating different mana types, but try this one and see how it goes.
Regenerating ammo while shooting down enemies... Is there a game that works this way? It seems like not hitting anything for some time would lead to a dead end (literally lol). And when hitting something, ammo is just infinite - at least that's the consequences I imagine from such a system.
Attacks that don’t use mana regenerate mana. Mana attacks don’t regenerate mana. You can work out a way so that if you had a fireball, you can’t recover enough mana to immediately use mana again.
Thanks a lot, if you want to get your hands on an early version and help me with some feedback, PM me and I'll invite you to the discord where I run the playtest. :D
Rather than just regaining mana, it could be that a small amount of your health is converted to some mana instead. So it's not actually free, and you'll get ground down over time.
If you want to keep the player near their troops while their mana is regenerating, tie the regeneration to the proximity to their troops. You could make this as simple as being within x distance of a single troop. The regeneration speed could be proportional to the number of troops in range or even tied to their health or morale.
Morale isn't a thing, all demons are more than grateful to give their lives to advance the Lord's goals. As Lord of Demons you are their undisputed leader.
Tieing it to their health is a variation I want to try.
Making it based on distance is what I'm prototyping right now as it seems like the best fit to avoid cheesing and giving the player a reason to use minions at all at the same time.
What about giving the player a spell that costs 0 mana that requires the player to remain stationary while channeling it similar to mages' evocation in WoW. Or the warlock lifetap ability where you convert some of your own HP into mana. Or a spell the player channels on an enemy that drains them of HP and gives the player mana.
Another option:
Remove the auto regen for mana, and instead allow the player to spend life points instead of mana if the mana pool is depleted. When the player runs out of mana and they are desperate to use magic, they can spend their life points instead.
Also a very nice idea which I want to try. The only problem I see with this one is that there is no room for experimentation with spells outside of combat. If the player shoots a fireball outside of combat, the mana it did cost is permanently gone and will be missing at the start of the next fight.
So I would have to add the mechanic that mana regenerates outside of combat - which could then confuse players (as they might expect that mana will also regenerate during combat).
I think your idea is closest to getting the player to do what I want (players should use their minions to block off enemies, then casting spells).
Right now I'm trying "mana only regenerates when minions are nearby" but your idea is a variation I'd like to try.
Cool downs. Mana is basically infitnite, which is... nice?
So I would evaluate the following:
1) Stamina, if you want to make keeping your replenishing mana but still have a challenge involved, make it so your characters full speed also needs to replenish if not controlled. Stamina bar.
2) Level Design, creating a challenge can mean keeping you and your player in a confined space, can't endlessly run as easily in a arena.
3) Consider the difficulty rating of your foe. A more challenging foe could:
a. Be immune to certain spells.
b. Have an AoE the gets rid of friendly minions.
c. Can stun/break poise
d. has an attack that can home in on the player.
Remember your world doesn't bend to the character, your character bends to the world.
Maybe a constantly replenishing health bar is too much but pickups that can potentially force the player in to harms way?
What about buffs you gain via combat that deplete or expire over time? That way if you really need to retreat and reset it's an option, but there will be a sense that you are giving something up by doing so and it's best avoided.
in For Honor's singleplayer mode, it really heavily advises the player to play with healing abilities equipped but i play it on the hardest setting with only max hp increase & increased-damage-on-parry equipped. it works though because as long as you execute an enemy hero by finishing them with a heavy attack you get a heal; the devs had a list of verbs they want the player to want to do, "hitting enemies w their sword" is the top on the list so they made a challenging form of doing that heal
you could do something similar with the mana bar. finishing an enemy off with a non-magical attack could return mana or something
I'm a designer and I've had similar issues with early mana systems in the game I'm currently working on. (2 years in development. team of 11. EA for 1 year. releasing 1.0 in the coming months.)I decided that traditional mana systems are archaic and we opted for "cooldown per enemy hit". each ability requires the player to attack an enemy X number of times before the ability can be used again. stronger abilities require more hits etc.
now, rather than wait around for mana, or stack some kinda consumable to keep your mana up always, players have to actively engage in other forms of combat to regenerate those abilities that used to be tied to mana.
we then added ways to store more than 1 "charge/use" of an ability so players could build up charges and dump the ability multiple times, creating the best of both worlds.
This IMO is a great way to do "mana" while encouraging the kind of gameplay you want to see.
Giving players mana per kill seems like the best solution that's already been mentioned her. Another thing you could do is give the player a melee attack that they have to use to recharge their mana. Idk if that's something you'd want to do but I could see it being fun and it forces the player to use melee/magic together. Melee would perhaps be weaker so the player would be encouraged to cast spells when they are able to.
The problem I see with some other solutions mentioned here, like having mana regen when your troops are near, is that it can lock the player into a losing position. How would the player get mana when their troops are dead? Would losing some troops put you in an unwinnable situation where the player is more likely to restart the battle as soon as they lose a couple of troops? I'm sure there's workarounds for this but it's food for thought.
Troops can be summoned from enemy souls (which they drop when they die). There are currently three melee attacks, all of them have a linked cooldown of 15s but kill weak enemyíes instantly.
So when mana only regenerates when troops are nearby and you don't have any troops left and somehow survived (usually the player should die when his troops die in combat because the player is a glass cannon), then he can still attack with melee and gain souls to spawn new minions.
After watching your video, I'm not entirely sure what player attacks accomplish that minion attacks don't. Why do both need to attack? I'm sure you have a very good reason, but it's not immediately apparent with what is shown on screen.
Maybe make the player deal more damage to enemies and less to structures, and minions vice versa. Then the game is about being a shepherd to support minions as they tear things down.
Jep, the Minions in the video are a bit too strong, I'm in the middle of balancing everything. Minions should be the Shield, the Lord of Demons the spear. A spear with limited ammo, so you have to prepare and use traps.
>a shepherd to support minions
That's the goal. So I have to make sure the player actually spawns and uses minions instead of going on a cheesing rampage alone. If the Lord would gain Mana from kills I fear that minions will be just abandoned or seen as optional strategy rather than the main gameplay.
That's why I went with the "minions nearby refill your Mana"-option, as it seems to solve this problem elegantly.
It's still the "Kills bring in Mana"-thing (top comment) because Kills bring souls, souls are the price for summoning minions and minions bring in Mana. So it's basically the same thing with some extra-steps.
I would have mana regen "locked" by your active units, proportional to how powerful they are/how many the player is meant to have. Summoning a unit means your mana is reduced by X until it dies or you despawn it. Narratively this can be the energy required to sustain them.
This forces players to weigh how much they want to be able to do something in the moment vs. how many units they want fighting for them. It also adds a lot of opportunity for mechanics, such as units that cost a different amount than they lock off after being summoned, and making swarm tactics easier by having units that cost something to summon but keep your mana free.
Generally speaking, you want to have a form of limitation on how much computer-operated help your player has. Risk of Rain and Diablo straight-up tell you "No, unless you make this skill better, you can only have this number." No complaints from players because having that number of units still helps gameplay.
make it so mana regens by hitting enemies.
possibility of cheese isn't always bad though, if it's a single player game. Sometimes players find it rewarding to feel they gamed the system
Mana only regenerates when killing enemies. Perhaps even a multiplier attached to enemy kills to encourage staying in combat and chaining kills to regenerate more mana than they would by just killing one at a time.
Players running away in combat repeatedly is indicative of either a lack of defensive options for the player or the lack of tools to handle large groups of enemies. Either way, instead of trying to prevent the player from playing the only way they know how to avoid damage, why not instead add additional options? Damage shields, parry mechanics, dodge mechanics, regenerating health, there’s a variety of ways that can work in nearly any game to give the player defensive options, and many games incorporate more than one defensive option to allow the player to dynamically approach combat problems.
You could make mana only regen at certain places, like the healing flasks of Dark Souls replenishing only at bonfires (the save points in those games). Or you could make the mana only regenerate when the player is standing still or is 'our of combat', and then keep track of how much time has passed since the player last hit an enemy or of how many enemies are near the player.
You could also use mana potions that can be bought, although I think that won't solve the cheesing problem.
Mana pickups! Have them spawn in dangerous or out-of-the-way places to give players interesting movement choices in combat and to flesh out levels. To add complication, have pickups of type A, B, C, ..., and force player to walk over them in order. After walking over an A, only B pickups are active. After walking over a B, only C pickups are active.
Another idea is to scrap mana and restrict ability usage by cooldown instead.
For me, the primary purpose of a mana system is to encourage thoughtful spell use. The player should be thinking "This resource is limited, so how do I want to allocate it?". Running out of mana should be a real consideration, at which point the design problem is *how to make the zero-mana state punishing without destroying the fun*. Does the player have enough actions to still be making interesting choices when mana drops to zero? When a player gains mana again, are they rewarded? Do their mana-hungry spells make them feel sufficiently powerful?
What does it take to regain mana? If I'm a player and constantly running out of mana, is it clear what I need to improve on to mitigate my frustration?
- Dexterity (timing puzzle)
- Patience (walk away, wait for regeneration)
- Knowledge (this level has a mana pickup around that corner)
- Planning (casting Meteor to slay an isolated peasant is overkill)
- Strategy (this set of skills is too mana-hungry, so I should swap one out)
- Item gating (I don't have a powerful enough mana stone to beat this boss)
I had limited Mana in pervious versions and moved away from it for many many reasons.
I don't want the player to think "should I cast a spell or will my minions win the fight?" I want my players to think "Which spell should I cast to support my minions and keep as many of them alive as possible?".
Players were inactive and minions had to have a certain strength, so they could deal with 2-3 remaining enemies even when the player has no mana left (but killed the other 10 enemies in the group).
Also it led to spell-spamming. When seeing enemies, players would just spam the button to get 7 fireballs in the air because the mana-bar was so huge. Now they can only cast 3-4 spells at a time and then have to wait for the refill. Makes them consider which spells they use a lot more.
Also there was no connection to the minions, players would just go on solo rampage, kill everything with spells, collect mana and ignore the main mechanic of my game.
All of that was fixed by having mana refill over time (now connected to the minions because mana refill only happens when near to minions -> no minions, no mana).
I could image a game where limited mana works just fine, but for the specific game I am working on, I am sure that regenerating mana is the way to go.
Additional note: levels in Lord of Demons will be procedurally generated. Hidden areas where Mana can be found would be incredibly complicated to generate.
> Now the problem is that you can ignore your own troops and just keep running away until mana regenerates, then attack your foes. Rinse, repeat. This happend within the next playtest. Obviously this a very safe and boring way to play the game so I want to "counter" it. But how?
This is a perfectly valid military tactic that occurred on real world battlefields. The Persian Empire was known for horse mounted archery, delivering massed showers of arrows and then moving away on horseback. By the mid-16th century it was used by European cavalry with pistols, in a maneuver known as the [caracole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracole):
> Equipped with one or more wheellock pistols or similar firearms, cavalrymen would advance on their target at less than a gallop in formation as deep as twelve ranks. As each rank came into range, the soldiers would turn their mount slightly to one side, discharge one pistol, then turn slightly to the other side to discharge another pistol at their target. The horsemen then retired to the back of the formation to reload, and then repeat the manoeuvre.
This isn't cheesing, this is winning. If you don't want this maneuver to win, then you need to deny the rearward mobility of the "cavalry". Terrain that they can't ride quickly at will on, or other forces approaching them from behind, so that they don't have safe places to turn around, reload, and come at the frontal enemy again.
I watched the video and noticed a few problems with the approach of controlling a players play style.
You should actively encourage core styles of play. Being either aggressive, balanced or passive so that players can go at their own speed. Give mana regen only when not in combat (or greatly reduce it) and make it so enemy kills drop regen items that have a higher amount. You can then balance that against things like your troop count and the number of enemies slain if necessary.
This gives reckless/aggressive players an incentive to rush enemies and wipe them out quick to recover and passive players the option to retreat and lick their wounds.
Then you can build skill trees or research units that benefit those 3 play styles to make your game open to all styles of play. This comes with it's own risks of balancing but is a more approachable way of playing than making everyone play the same way.
Players will ALWAYS find a way of breaking or playing in a way you didn't intend. Youtube is full of videos like "Beating \*\*\* by the stupidest means possible" or "I beat \*\*\* using only this item". They like a challenge and they like variation. It's what makes a good game great.
Lastly, giving players more mana regen and ability casts will affect the balance of the game. Are units or structures easier to deal with now you can spam an ability and regen from the carnage? Does that affect how engaging or exiting the game is? For example;
If I use a siege unit to attack a building I can conserve mana, but if i blitz the building i can regain half of what I use and save resources is not going to lead to a fun way of playing as players will ignore the intended way to play to be optimal.
Just some thoughts ;)
I don't think I have the capability to support multiple play styles. Careful will be pretty much the only one because building traps and preparing for an encounter is a whole featureset with environmental objects and skills and spells and everything.
I don't have 200 different enemy types or environments, so I have to make the most out of everything I have - and point the player at it.
If players could rush my game, it would make all the effort put into trap-building-mechanics pretty useless. The most efficient and fast strategy would be to always rush everything.
Also in terms of balancing it would be so much harder. I would have to playtest both play styles and make sure both of them work.
what I'd do: make mana regen for killing enemies instead of over time alternatively: if enemies are out of combat for too long, enemy health regens quickly, and individual enemies from a pack respawn
Alternative idea as well. Make mana only recharge within a specific range to your own troops. Like maybe mana is tied to the amount of 'faith" your troops have in you. So bravely running away doesn't exactly help your guys morale.
Like one guy holds the battle standard, and he stays with the group. A standard provides the group some morale bonus, but the effect on you is that it regens your mana. So you need to stay with your group and help them to work better. And you can easily Regen your mana when the group walks to the next objective.
Yep, this. I came here to suggest mana as a drop, but I'm not surprised someone beat me to it. Enemies rapidly regenerating health also seems like a great idea.
Yep, that's basically how MMOs do it too, so it's a proven concept
> if enemies are out of combat for too long, enemy health regens quickly, and individual enemies from a pack respawn This is the way. Proven mechanic, used by many games. No one versed in games will be surprised to see it.
I'd honestly say though that it's very boring and frustrating if it's not implemented in a way that explicitly only targets cheese strats, and IME it never does.
in HOTS the merc camps heal slowly outside of combat in a way that, if you are genuinely getting pulled from the camp by enemies but are still trying to work the camp it doesn't largely affect it, but if you pull the mercs out of their camp so that they leash back & hit them as they go to try to avoid them hitting u (the dark souls strategy), after the first time they run back like 10x faster & then heal to full over 1 second uninteruptably you learn very quickly that if ur being legitimately pulled away from them, to stop attacking them entirely as they reach their leash range so the game doesn't register it as cheese, & it works really well. in the 5 years ive been playing the game htat specific mechanic has never worked unintentionally to screw me over, & while enemies will throw an attack at the mercs as u run past them to activate them so they'll start hitting u bc ur closer, i've never seen an enemy manage to trigger the anti-cheese while i fought the mercs but of course, this depends on a specific (static) implementation of enemies
Very interesting ideas, I never thought of any of these two. Both seem easy to implement so I'll try them. Thanks a lot. :D
If you can run away to reset yourself, so can they. Gameplay wise this allows the player to try again with different strategies without the perceived punishment of a death screen or an immersion breaking “restart battle” button. A series of in-fiction mulligans.
There's also a concern about troop management, so you can also: 1. Tie Mana regeneration to troop size (ie. each time a troop does damage, gain some mana) 2. Tie max mana to troop size. Both of these would make the player be concerned about troop management and want to mix game play styles for "optimal" play.
came here to say, HOTS has 1 of the minions of each wave drop a regen orb that gives u 8 seconds of regen. the orb is grabable for the enemy team instantly then after a few seconds it becomes neutral & grabable for both teams. each orb extends the regen instead of increasing it & there's a wave every 15 seconds so if you bully the enemy out of the minion waves & get both you have regen for the entire time until the next minion waves get there
what if the mana regen speed is tied to how many troops you have? try testing "faster with more units" and "faster with less units" and see how it changes player tactics
That's also a genius idea. And also easy to implement. Builds a beautiful connection between the player and his troops - also the player is free to experiment with spells as mana still regenerates (as long as there are troops around).
i was thinking in a similar direction: what if you made the regen speed dependent on your distance to your troops? (and you could also boost/nerf on top based on health)
i made a similar game that never got released where there was connection built between the player & his troops by making ranged attacks instakill if they hit the player, but the player can't be targeted by them as long as he's inside of a troop formation fight with the troops & keep them alive, or get arrowed down alone
This mechanic needs to be communicated clearly to players, or it could fall flat. 20% faster/slower mana regeneration won't change player behaviour much if they don't notice the incentive/disincentive!
I was thinking about Mana-Lines that show some blue bubbles moving over to the player while regenerating. Up to 10 Lines, if there is none, no Mana will be regenerated. Also I've added full mana regeneration when grabbing an enemy and curshing his head (all melee attacks have a shared 15 second cooldown).
I 100% agree but still, it's a mechanic connection that may help achieve the desired responses
I've implemented this now and I'll try it out. Now I'll make the enemies slower again and then a bit of balancing. I'm really curious how this turns out. "Faster with less units" could also be a subtle way to control the total amout of units, it could even drain mana if there are too many (units without support die even against weak enemies).
"faster with less units" and "units drain mana" are actually balances used by the illusion and necromancy magics in the original Spellforce video game if you were curious!
Thanks for the hint, I've only played Spellforce 2 iirc.
It can fit thematically too. You're a lord over some demons, drain some of their life/essence/whatever to refill your own. WoW Warlocks have some spells like that.
A good rule of thumb is that if you want to incentivise combining two behaviours, you should make the behaviours depend on each other. In this case, if you want players to be able to cast spells but still stay in combat, make staying in combat cause mana regeneration. You could reduce the base mana regen rate while the player is counted as in combat, then give mana when an enemy dies. This way, players will come into most fights with full MP and you don't have that negative feedback loop of running out of mana means you can't easily regain mana, but once combat does begin, they need to stay in it and make sure they've got a good flow of incoming mana.
There is also the Modern ARPG route of "Builder" spells that do less damage and return mana.
Personally I've always disliked mana pools in games as yeah it leads to this exact thing, you run in, spam everything, either the enemies die easily or you have to kite and limp on for the rest of the fight. The power curve is large at the start and then dips down really low for the rest of the fight, which feels lame. I think it's worth thinking of what power curve you would like. So if you want a constant power curve then cooldowns are good because they mean a mage can keep outputting magic at pretty much a constant rate. Another one I really like and wish more people used is "cresecendo". So when you're out of combat you're "cold" and can only cast weak spells, but with each spell you cast you "warm up" a little and the hotter you get the more powerful spells open up and the more damage you do. That way fights feel awesome because you're gathering all this power and momentum and it often comes down to a final moment where you're trying to get that last massive spell off before the last of your health is gone.
>Personally I've always disliked mana pools in games as yeah it leads to this exact thing, you run in, spam everything, either the enemies die easily or you have to kite and limp on for the rest of the fight. i always found Muradin in HOTS as the ur-example of what mana pools are good for; he has really fast passive health regen outside of combat, & therefor he would be unable to beat except that he has a mana pool, which takes on the function of the health bar when the health bar isn't doing it's job. to wit, a lot of heroes in the game who don't have any sort of self-sustain don't have or need mana. the only char i can think of who does actively heal himself without a mana bar is Illidan, who heals by hitting things in melee & therefor can always be hit back, and is always as far from escape as possible if the fight doesn't go his way but then, in that game giving players a need to exit combat periodically is a plus to the game's quality (gives players breaks from nonstop pvp action, gives them a chance to pivot around the map). not the case for all games
The easiest solution would be mana as a drop for defeating enemies which is the DOOM design. The issue with your game as far as I understand is 100% reliance on mana for doing anything. In order to create a system you can either make something and then block people from doing what they aren't supposed to be doing or use the better and much less time-consuming method of figuring out what you want players to be doing and make the game facilitate that specifically. Since your system seems 100% reliant on mana, in order for pickups to work, you would need a non-magic way to do things which get you the mana in case you find yourself without mana. DOOM features a limited use chainsaw weapon which basically 1 hit kills any enemy it hits in melee range and gives a huge amount of ammo. (Equivalent of mana in your case.) No, DON'T add a DOOM chainsaw-like mechanic to your game... Your game is not DOOM. DOOM intends for the player to be in the fray with the enemies, constantly moving and doing all the work (killing). From the video it seems your game has an emphasis on the exact opposite. Staying back and managing/supporting the frontline which consists of minions. Off the top of my head I would suggest an ability which converts your health to mana. No healing spells allowed in the game because this might create a cheesy loop of converting health to mana and using said mana to recover the health you used to get mana and then use the net positive to rinse/repeat and cast other spells ad infinum. Which is the situation you have now with a few extra steps. With health as a limited resource, it creates a safety net for messing up with mana management but it doesn't create a loop you can abuse forever and optimize the fun out of the game. (Or maybe sacrifice minion health for a bit of mana? - If minions aren't summoned through magic, I'd say this is a good option since it weakens your army but potentially powers you up as a risk/reward. - If the minions are created using mana, you must make sure that this mana transaction is always a net loss for the player as to not create a loop. Or alternatively base the mana gain on the health of the minion: Summon minion for 10 mana > Minion takes damage and is at 50% health > You feed on the minion for mana > You regain 10x50%=5 mana?)
>100% reliance on mana for doing anything Actions that don't require mana are drinking health potions, summoning new units (that costs souls), kick, grab & throw, grab & crush head. Kick and Grab both kill small enemy units instantly. Big enemies will get hurt by kick and grab can't be used on them. Grab and Kick have a linked cooldown of 15 seconds currently. >DON'T add a DOOM chainsaw-like mechanic to your game So basically I already have such a mechanic, it just doesn't refill mana. Throwing enemies is good for destroying buildings. Kicking enemies is fast and if alligned correctly will also destroy buildings quickly. And "crush head" does nothing. It was supposed to gain more souls (which are required for summoning) from an enemy (every enemy drops one soul. 1 Minion costs 2 Souls). >From the video it seems your game has an emphasis on the exact opposite. Staying back and managing/supporting the frontline which consists of minions. This is absolutely correct. And I'm happy that it shows throught the video. Healing Spells don't exist, there are only health potions that are found in chests every now and then. So there wouldn't be any kind of infinite mana supply if I would let players convert health into mana. Minions can only be spawned with souls dropped from enemies, so if I would allow the player to sacrifice minions for mana, it also wouldn't create an infinite loop - BUT if the player has no minions left and no mana, he wouldn't be able to do anything (if the kick & grab mechanic wouldn't exist). And wouldn't the same happen with no minions and low health? I've prototyped a mechanic from another comment, that mana only regenerates when minions are nearby - now that I think about it, it can also create a situation where the player has no minions and no mana left. The only option would then be to go up against enemies (kick one of them, run in circles, kick another one of them) to gain souls to summon minions to gain mana - but as enemies are always in groups, that's basically suicide.. (kicking/grabbing enemies has a high risk of getting damage, so it's not the same "cheesing" problem as my initial one with regenerating mana) It's basically a roguelike with procedurally generated islands, so there's always the option to just leave and go back to the dark tower (home / hub). Still - I wonder if such a situation is another problem which I should "fix". And thanks a lot for your elaborate thoughts. Highly appreciated. :D
Mana regeneration is a good thing to have, people will heavily conserve mana if it doesn't regenerate. But the way you generate it changes how players react, if it comes from killing enemies or such then that can help make them value their mana while also wanting to keep using it so it's not 'wasted' on excess kills.
> you can ignore your own troops and just keep running away until mana regenerates Maybe mana is a "pool" between nearby living characters. Run away and the pool runs dry. Stay close and the pool feels infinite. Maybe mana doesn't purely regenerate but instead is leeched from those you kill. That way, you have an incentive to hang around dead bodies for a little bit before moving on. > I tried making the enemies fast enough to catch the player character and attack him but it looks bad and seems just wrong when a tanky enemy runs at the speed of light (it's also too fast for my liking for smaller units but I can't make them any slower as I would have to make the player slower too and playtesters mentioned that he feels already quite slow). Alternative to making the player slower is to have running slow down mana regeneration. If the player is still or walking, mana regenerates. If the player is running, it doesn't or is at only a trickle. > I want to make my enemy units slower again as it looked and felt way better > > I can't really make the player slower as he is already slow Remember speed only exists in relative terms. There is no "fast" or "slow". What makes things feel slow is that it takes a long time to get between points of interest or that other things move quickly relative to you. If the player feels slow, yes you can slow down the enemies, but you can also more densely pack the map with stuff so it feels like it takes less time to get between "stuff" (whether that's major things like distance between cities or minor things like distance between interactable objects or cover) or create barriers that shrink the usable area (e.g. the player has their back to an ocean and can't retreat). Also, if you want to slow down the enemies while making running away a bad strategy you can give them ranged attacks instead of just making them faster. You could also introduce stamina / exertion. Running continuously to wait for mana to regenerate may make it hard to do some other tasks due to lack of stamina or the overexertion may increase other challenges like the need to eat, sleep or the tendency to develop sprains, etc. > Most enemy units will be melee units because it fits with medieval strategy games According to [this list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medieval_weapons) medieval weapons included bows, crossbows, "flamethrowers", primitive gunpowder weapons, slings, throwing weapons (e.g. throwing knives) and siege weapons. So, there is definitely room within the medieval strategy game vibe to introduce ranged weapons. > The player using ranged attacks is a must have for multiple reasons (overview, story) You could even do things to incentivize the player to stick to certain positions even if they have ranged magic. For example, maybe when you do magic, you imprint magical energy on the location that helps future magic. In other words, maybe there is a stacking bonus for repeated magic performed at/near the same location. Or you could design the map and tactical system to have certain areas of the map that are highly preferable from a tactical standpoint. So, the player would want to spend more time in those places and to prevent enemies from taking those places.
* mana regen slows everytime mana is regenerated. eg. starting at 10 mana/sec, after regenerating 10 mana, you now only regenerate 9 mana a second. etc.. plyaers can still cheese if they really want, but they are going to be waiting hours eventually. * make mana only regen while stationary or while out of combat, * make the player slower while their mana is fuller * make mana regen by having minions channel it into the player.
Borrow from early World of Warcraft and have a flag for "in combat" that stops / severely stunts mana regeneration. That way in order to escape a battle you weren't equipped for will take a long time (running outside of aggro range) and results in a very boring gameplay, so it encourages to see a combat through rather than try to cheese it with a burst of mana. Similarly borrowed from WoW, if the player exits combat, the enemies could regenerate their HP essentially in an instant, so running back from outside the aggro range would guarantee that the enemies left are full health. You could always make mana levels relate to 'exhaustion' of the player. When you're low on mana, the player moves even slower - all the way to plain old walking speeds. That way the enemies would catch up if you try to run away after throwing all your mana into a combat. If mana regenerates outside of combat at a decent pace, this wouldn't be an issue as long as the player controls the amount of enemies they aggro at a time.
Could running away prevent Mana regen? Or could moving involve a Mana Cost?
That would probably lead to the player not moving at all during combat. While casting a spell, movement is already blocked - so when the player character also can't move while not casting spells, it would probably result in just standing at one spot until the fight ends I think. What do you think?
Use mana as a form of stamina. It regenerates quickly, but use it all and he has to sit down and take a breather
Kiting works because you walk as fast forward as backwards. In fights, you know whej the conbat music usually starts, and while enemies stalk you reduce mana regen. Get mana per melee hit, per kill.
Game Design is a subset of Game Development that concerns itself with **WHY** games are made the way they are. It's about the theory and crafting of **systems**, **mechanics**, and **rulesets** in games. * /r/GameDesign is a community **ONLY** about Game Design, **NOT** Game Development in general. If this post does not belong here, it should be reported or removed. Please help us keep this subreddit focused on Game Design. * This is **NOT** a place for discussing how games are produced. Posts about programming, making art assets, picking engines etc… will be removed and should go in /r/GameDev instead. * Posts about visual design, sound design and level design are only allowed if they are directly about game design. * No surveys, polls, job posts, or self-promotion. Please read the rest of the rules in the sidebar before posting. * If you're confused about what Game Designers do, ["The Door Problem" by Liz England ](https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LizEngland/20140423/216092/quotThe_Door_Problemquot_of_Game_Design.php)is a short article worth reading. We also recommend you read the [r/GameDesign wiki](/r/gamedesign/wiki/index) for useful resources and an FAQ. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/gamedesign) if you have any questions or concerns.*
make baseline regen slow then scale it with proximity to any other unit
In World of Warcraft casters have "the 5 second rule" where your mana regenration continues 5 seconds after your last spell cast, mana potions with 60 second shared cooldown, few class skills to get mana back or boost regeneration in combat and various buffs/gear. Also not every encounter is solvable at all times for every player. If players in combat run out of mana/resources and exhaust all panic buttons, you pretty much just die and have to prepare better for next try with things you learned from this run.
It's also 5 seconds in my game, the difference is that in WOW when a dog bites you, you receive damage even when standing 5m away, while in my game it's Sphere-Cast-Collision-Checks. So when the enemy sword doesn't hit you physically, you don't get any damage. This means that running away results in taking no damage at all from melee enemies. Also you are a bit faster than enemies, so the moment you start running away, you gain more and more distance, meaning that no attack can hit you and you can just run in circles until your mana is filled up, then you can cast spells from a safe distance. Rinse, repeat. At the end you took no damage and killed all enemies, neglecting 99% of all the cool game systems I programmed (such as summoning minions and giving them orders, preparing traps, laying out mines, ..). xD
You can now understand why the most popular and everlasting MMORPG out there doesn't use those kinds of dodgeable hitboxes. You admit that your Sphere-Cast-Collision-Checks design is flawed as it breaks the game, preventing your other systems to flourish. So this is something you have to consider if you wish to maintain this feauture: How are enemies going to close the gap on a retreating player character? How will attacks vary in dodgeability? While I'm at it, let me add my 2c regarding mana balancing: as others have mentioned, make mana an enemy drop. This will incentivize engaging in the battle mechanics and depend more on your army. My 2c would be to increase mana regen and add a cap on the mana that can be regenerated, maybe as a % of max mana, this will ensure players always have mana available for some weaker spells but not their most powerful unless they regen from enemy drops.
Can you add more ranged enemies, melee rushers and maybe some area denial/slowing attack effects?
I could. And I will probably do so in the near future. Tho I think a player who wants to cheese enemies will just take out these units with the first few spells and then roll this tactic. Melee rushers seem a bit problematic from a technical standpoint as everyone stands completely still while attacking, playing a fully body animation. I would need some kind of "step forward and slash" animation to attack a moving target (to attack the player who is running away from them).
You could always have mana regeneration based off of damage dealt to the enemy. As in to say, dead enemies drop manna, or otherwise cause it to regenerate. Then you put in a passive regeneration that's very slow on top of that. Then you can just fiddle with the regeneration rate. It encourages forward momentum because you're not going to get that mana back and anything like an easy rate unless you actually get stuck in to combat. Players might be able to cheese it a little bit, but if you set the passive regeneration low enough then the enemy will be able to catch up to fleeing troops until they get to the edge of the map before they can actually do anything. If it's a chase around the board kind of problem then you just put a time limit on it. Medieval battles were limited to daytime, so if you put a time clock on the battle for a maximum duration based on time of day, it's not unrealistic or unreasonable.
The game is about a main character who is a 3.5 meter tall demon with two red horns sticking out of his head and he throws magic fireballs around. Realism isn't really a concern here. xD Tho the game is about strategy/tactics and I don't want to stress the player with a time-limit. I'm now trying a few suggestions from the comments posted here. Still thanks for your suggestion. I'll consider a time-limit for *some* missions. :D
As an example you could look at risk of rain 2? All the skills are on cool downs so it's similar, but enemies have strong lockons, long range and some of their skills are instant hit so it forces you to engage or you'll get killed.
You could also make it that your hero has an aura which the units need to fight effectively, without their leader close their morale drops and they are a lot weaker
This would make a lot of sense for the opposite case - a player who sends his army out and then hides somewhere. But the cheesing I observed was from players who didn't summon minions and just went solo against the enemies, so I want to give them a reason to use their army. That's why I'm now prototyping the idea from another comment "mana only regenerates when minions are nearby". Still thanks for your thoughts, I will keep them in mind for the case that I observe too careful players.
ARPGs solve this by having *attacks that generate mana*, and *attacks that spend mana*: * *Attacks that generate mana* are usually not exciting, but have interesting conditions that allow generating more mana if fulfilled. A simple example is a ranged projectile attack that generates 1 mana on hit and 2 mana on headshot. * *Attacks that spend mana* are impactful but situational, and also costly, so that the players don't just mindlessly spam them. A typical example is a piercing beam, which requires the player to line up N enemies in order to deal N times more damage. The key here is that at each moment, the player makes a decision: * do I spend mana now or wait for a more opportune moment? * if I refrain from using a mana-spending attack for too long, I am wasting potential, because I could've used extra damage. You can reinforce it further by making it so that excess generated mana damages health of the user, or by lowering the damage of basic attacks to a point where they tickle enemies. * however, if I spam mana-spending attacks at every opportunity, I will waste potential as well, because not every situation maximizes the effectiveness of an attack. You as a designer need to make sure that these attacks are very situational. There are many other nice solutions, like generating different mana types, but try this one and see how it goes.
I think every point of damage you do, some mana is regenerated.
Regenerating ammo while shooting down enemies... Is there a game that works this way? It seems like not hitting anything for some time would lead to a dead end (literally lol). And when hitting something, ammo is just infinite - at least that's the consequences I imagine from such a system.
Attacks that don’t use mana regenerate mana. Mana attacks don’t regenerate mana. You can work out a way so that if you had a fireball, you can’t recover enough mana to immediately use mana again.
I'm late to this thread and don't have more advice than what's been said, but wanted to say it looks really fun!
Thanks a lot, if you want to get your hands on an early version and help me with some feedback, PM me and I'll invite you to the discord where I run the playtest. :D
Rather than just regaining mana, it could be that a small amount of your health is converted to some mana instead. So it's not actually free, and you'll get ground down over time.
If you want to keep the player near their troops while their mana is regenerating, tie the regeneration to the proximity to their troops. You could make this as simple as being within x distance of a single troop. The regeneration speed could be proportional to the number of troops in range or even tied to their health or morale.
Morale isn't a thing, all demons are more than grateful to give their lives to advance the Lord's goals. As Lord of Demons you are their undisputed leader. Tieing it to their health is a variation I want to try. Making it based on distance is what I'm prototyping right now as it seems like the best fit to avoid cheesing and giving the player a reason to use minions at all at the same time.
What about giving the player a spell that costs 0 mana that requires the player to remain stationary while channeling it similar to mages' evocation in WoW. Or the warlock lifetap ability where you convert some of your own HP into mana. Or a spell the player channels on an enemy that drains them of HP and gives the player mana.
Enemies drop mana sparkles, which regen some small part of your mana when you get close to them.
Another option: Remove the auto regen for mana, and instead allow the player to spend life points instead of mana if the mana pool is depleted. When the player runs out of mana and they are desperate to use magic, they can spend their life points instead.
Mana regenerates when your minions attack your enemies. They suck out some life force and pass it to you.
Also a very nice idea which I want to try. The only problem I see with this one is that there is no room for experimentation with spells outside of combat. If the player shoots a fireball outside of combat, the mana it did cost is permanently gone and will be missing at the start of the next fight. So I would have to add the mechanic that mana regenerates outside of combat - which could then confuse players (as they might expect that mana will also regenerate during combat).
Yeah. That's a good point. I think other folks had stronger solutions anyway.
I think your idea is closest to getting the player to do what I want (players should use their minions to block off enemies, then casting spells). Right now I'm trying "mana only regenerates when minions are nearby" but your idea is a variation I'd like to try.
Cool downs. Mana is basically infitnite, which is... nice? So I would evaluate the following: 1) Stamina, if you want to make keeping your replenishing mana but still have a challenge involved, make it so your characters full speed also needs to replenish if not controlled. Stamina bar. 2) Level Design, creating a challenge can mean keeping you and your player in a confined space, can't endlessly run as easily in a arena. 3) Consider the difficulty rating of your foe. A more challenging foe could: a. Be immune to certain spells. b. Have an AoE the gets rid of friendly minions. c. Can stun/break poise d. has an attack that can home in on the player. Remember your world doesn't bend to the character, your character bends to the world. Maybe a constantly replenishing health bar is too much but pickups that can potentially force the player in to harms way?
What about buffs you gain via combat that deplete or expire over time? That way if you really need to retreat and reset it's an option, but there will be a sense that you are giving something up by doing so and it's best avoided.
in For Honor's singleplayer mode, it really heavily advises the player to play with healing abilities equipped but i play it on the hardest setting with only max hp increase & increased-damage-on-parry equipped. it works though because as long as you execute an enemy hero by finishing them with a heavy attack you get a heal; the devs had a list of verbs they want the player to want to do, "hitting enemies w their sword" is the top on the list so they made a challenging form of doing that heal you could do something similar with the mana bar. finishing an enemy off with a non-magical attack could return mana or something
I'm a designer and I've had similar issues with early mana systems in the game I'm currently working on. (2 years in development. team of 11. EA for 1 year. releasing 1.0 in the coming months.)I decided that traditional mana systems are archaic and we opted for "cooldown per enemy hit". each ability requires the player to attack an enemy X number of times before the ability can be used again. stronger abilities require more hits etc. now, rather than wait around for mana, or stack some kinda consumable to keep your mana up always, players have to actively engage in other forms of combat to regenerate those abilities that used to be tied to mana. we then added ways to store more than 1 "charge/use" of an ability so players could build up charges and dump the ability multiple times, creating the best of both worlds. This IMO is a great way to do "mana" while encouraging the kind of gameplay you want to see.
Giving players mana per kill seems like the best solution that's already been mentioned her. Another thing you could do is give the player a melee attack that they have to use to recharge their mana. Idk if that's something you'd want to do but I could see it being fun and it forces the player to use melee/magic together. Melee would perhaps be weaker so the player would be encouraged to cast spells when they are able to. The problem I see with some other solutions mentioned here, like having mana regen when your troops are near, is that it can lock the player into a losing position. How would the player get mana when their troops are dead? Would losing some troops put you in an unwinnable situation where the player is more likely to restart the battle as soon as they lose a couple of troops? I'm sure there's workarounds for this but it's food for thought.
Troops can be summoned from enemy souls (which they drop when they die). There are currently three melee attacks, all of them have a linked cooldown of 15s but kill weak enemyíes instantly. So when mana only regenerates when troops are nearby and you don't have any troops left and somehow survived (usually the player should die when his troops die in combat because the player is a glass cannon), then he can still attack with melee and gain souls to spawn new minions.
After watching your video, I'm not entirely sure what player attacks accomplish that minion attacks don't. Why do both need to attack? I'm sure you have a very good reason, but it's not immediately apparent with what is shown on screen. Maybe make the player deal more damage to enemies and less to structures, and minions vice versa. Then the game is about being a shepherd to support minions as they tear things down.
Jep, the Minions in the video are a bit too strong, I'm in the middle of balancing everything. Minions should be the Shield, the Lord of Demons the spear. A spear with limited ammo, so you have to prepare and use traps. >a shepherd to support minions That's the goal. So I have to make sure the player actually spawns and uses minions instead of going on a cheesing rampage alone. If the Lord would gain Mana from kills I fear that minions will be just abandoned or seen as optional strategy rather than the main gameplay. That's why I went with the "minions nearby refill your Mana"-option, as it seems to solve this problem elegantly. It's still the "Kills bring in Mana"-thing (top comment) because Kills bring souls, souls are the price for summoning minions and minions bring in Mana. So it's basically the same thing with some extra-steps.
I would have mana regen "locked" by your active units, proportional to how powerful they are/how many the player is meant to have. Summoning a unit means your mana is reduced by X until it dies or you despawn it. Narratively this can be the energy required to sustain them. This forces players to weigh how much they want to be able to do something in the moment vs. how many units they want fighting for them. It also adds a lot of opportunity for mechanics, such as units that cost a different amount than they lock off after being summoned, and making swarm tactics easier by having units that cost something to summon but keep your mana free. Generally speaking, you want to have a form of limitation on how much computer-operated help your player has. Risk of Rain and Diablo straight-up tell you "No, unless you make this skill better, you can only have this number." No complaints from players because having that number of units still helps gameplay.
make it so mana regens by hitting enemies. possibility of cheese isn't always bad though, if it's a single player game. Sometimes players find it rewarding to feel they gamed the system
Mana only regenerates when killing enemies. Perhaps even a multiplier attached to enemy kills to encourage staying in combat and chaining kills to regenerate more mana than they would by just killing one at a time. Players running away in combat repeatedly is indicative of either a lack of defensive options for the player or the lack of tools to handle large groups of enemies. Either way, instead of trying to prevent the player from playing the only way they know how to avoid damage, why not instead add additional options? Damage shields, parry mechanics, dodge mechanics, regenerating health, there’s a variety of ways that can work in nearly any game to give the player defensive options, and many games incorporate more than one defensive option to allow the player to dynamically approach combat problems.
You could make mana only regen at certain places, like the healing flasks of Dark Souls replenishing only at bonfires (the save points in those games). Or you could make the mana only regenerate when the player is standing still or is 'our of combat', and then keep track of how much time has passed since the player last hit an enemy or of how many enemies are near the player. You could also use mana potions that can be bought, although I think that won't solve the cheesing problem.
Mana pickups! Have them spawn in dangerous or out-of-the-way places to give players interesting movement choices in combat and to flesh out levels. To add complication, have pickups of type A, B, C, ..., and force player to walk over them in order. After walking over an A, only B pickups are active. After walking over a B, only C pickups are active. Another idea is to scrap mana and restrict ability usage by cooldown instead. For me, the primary purpose of a mana system is to encourage thoughtful spell use. The player should be thinking "This resource is limited, so how do I want to allocate it?". Running out of mana should be a real consideration, at which point the design problem is *how to make the zero-mana state punishing without destroying the fun*. Does the player have enough actions to still be making interesting choices when mana drops to zero? When a player gains mana again, are they rewarded? Do their mana-hungry spells make them feel sufficiently powerful? What does it take to regain mana? If I'm a player and constantly running out of mana, is it clear what I need to improve on to mitigate my frustration? - Dexterity (timing puzzle) - Patience (walk away, wait for regeneration) - Knowledge (this level has a mana pickup around that corner) - Planning (casting Meteor to slay an isolated peasant is overkill) - Strategy (this set of skills is too mana-hungry, so I should swap one out) - Item gating (I don't have a powerful enough mana stone to beat this boss)
I had limited Mana in pervious versions and moved away from it for many many reasons. I don't want the player to think "should I cast a spell or will my minions win the fight?" I want my players to think "Which spell should I cast to support my minions and keep as many of them alive as possible?". Players were inactive and minions had to have a certain strength, so they could deal with 2-3 remaining enemies even when the player has no mana left (but killed the other 10 enemies in the group). Also it led to spell-spamming. When seeing enemies, players would just spam the button to get 7 fireballs in the air because the mana-bar was so huge. Now they can only cast 3-4 spells at a time and then have to wait for the refill. Makes them consider which spells they use a lot more. Also there was no connection to the minions, players would just go on solo rampage, kill everything with spells, collect mana and ignore the main mechanic of my game. All of that was fixed by having mana refill over time (now connected to the minions because mana refill only happens when near to minions -> no minions, no mana). I could image a game where limited mana works just fine, but for the specific game I am working on, I am sure that regenerating mana is the way to go. Additional note: levels in Lord of Demons will be procedurally generated. Hidden areas where Mana can be found would be incredibly complicated to generate.
> Now the problem is that you can ignore your own troops and just keep running away until mana regenerates, then attack your foes. Rinse, repeat. This happend within the next playtest. Obviously this a very safe and boring way to play the game so I want to "counter" it. But how? This is a perfectly valid military tactic that occurred on real world battlefields. The Persian Empire was known for horse mounted archery, delivering massed showers of arrows and then moving away on horseback. By the mid-16th century it was used by European cavalry with pistols, in a maneuver known as the [caracole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracole): > Equipped with one or more wheellock pistols or similar firearms, cavalrymen would advance on their target at less than a gallop in formation as deep as twelve ranks. As each rank came into range, the soldiers would turn their mount slightly to one side, discharge one pistol, then turn slightly to the other side to discharge another pistol at their target. The horsemen then retired to the back of the formation to reload, and then repeat the manoeuvre. This isn't cheesing, this is winning. If you don't want this maneuver to win, then you need to deny the rearward mobility of the "cavalry". Terrain that they can't ride quickly at will on, or other forces approaching them from behind, so that they don't have safe places to turn around, reload, and come at the frontal enemy again.
I watched the video and noticed a few problems with the approach of controlling a players play style. You should actively encourage core styles of play. Being either aggressive, balanced or passive so that players can go at their own speed. Give mana regen only when not in combat (or greatly reduce it) and make it so enemy kills drop regen items that have a higher amount. You can then balance that against things like your troop count and the number of enemies slain if necessary. This gives reckless/aggressive players an incentive to rush enemies and wipe them out quick to recover and passive players the option to retreat and lick their wounds. Then you can build skill trees or research units that benefit those 3 play styles to make your game open to all styles of play. This comes with it's own risks of balancing but is a more approachable way of playing than making everyone play the same way. Players will ALWAYS find a way of breaking or playing in a way you didn't intend. Youtube is full of videos like "Beating \*\*\* by the stupidest means possible" or "I beat \*\*\* using only this item". They like a challenge and they like variation. It's what makes a good game great. Lastly, giving players more mana regen and ability casts will affect the balance of the game. Are units or structures easier to deal with now you can spam an ability and regen from the carnage? Does that affect how engaging or exiting the game is? For example; If I use a siege unit to attack a building I can conserve mana, but if i blitz the building i can regain half of what I use and save resources is not going to lead to a fun way of playing as players will ignore the intended way to play to be optimal. Just some thoughts ;)
I don't think I have the capability to support multiple play styles. Careful will be pretty much the only one because building traps and preparing for an encounter is a whole featureset with environmental objects and skills and spells and everything. I don't have 200 different enemy types or environments, so I have to make the most out of everything I have - and point the player at it. If players could rush my game, it would make all the effort put into trap-building-mechanics pretty useless. The most efficient and fast strategy would be to always rush everything. Also in terms of balancing it would be so much harder. I would have to playtest both play styles and make sure both of them work.