Alternate Combat Resources to Spend

[Vulkan]

Hello everyone,


This is my first forum post so forgive me in advance.


What I have been yearning to accomplish is some kind of resource system that could be spent only on certain abilities.


For example: 


I want to make a class that, as they receive damage and deal damage and use skills they will accumulate "Rage". You could then spend this rage only on abilities that require it. Basically in addition to MP or TP. So some skills cost MP/TP then these special skills would cost only "Rage".


My hope is to establish a system like this so that I can manage multiple combat resources for classes. 

 

[Basileus]

...so...did you have any questions regarding a "Rage" style mechanic? Are you looking for help making a system like this, or just looking to see if other people think it's a good idea?

 

[Vulkan]

...so...did you have any questions regarding a "Rage" style mechanic? Are you looking for help making a system like this, or just looking to see if other people think it's a good idea?

I was wondering how could I go about implementing this system while maintaining the current MP/TP system. I wanted it to be an extra resource.


Sorry if my original post is a little off I have trouble conveying my thoughts.

 

[Basileus]

I see. This isn't really the right forum for getting help actually implementing things. It's mostly for discussing the pros and cons of different mechanics and fishing for ideas on how people feel about different mechanics to get ideas and feedback.


So just to give you my 2 cents on this, I'd be pretty concerned about adding a "Rage" system on top of an MP/TP system. Especially if you have both MP and TP. That's a lot to manage, but more importantly, you don't have that much space to convey all of those resources bars and statuses to the player. See League of Legends, which uses things like Rage, Fury, etc. as resources for some of the playable units, but generally in place of a Mana bar instead of alongside one. Part of this is due to needing to convey the status of the Rage resource to the player and having to use the same secondary resource bar that other champions use for Mana for clarity. Also, since League is a competitive game, it's a bit unfair to ask some players to have to manage Rage on top of Mana and cooldowns while other champions only have Mana and cooldowns. Instead, champions that have alternate resources to manage typically do not have mana so their entire kits can be centered around using timing and managing their alternate resource to provide a different play style and experience, rather than dump those things on top of the mana system other champions use. In addition to avoiding player overload, this helps champions feel more unique since the player can't use their knowledge and skill with managing mana and have to learn new skills and tricks to managing the alternate resource.


I'd recommend limiting Rage to characters that do not have both MP and TP. Mixing Rage with one of them can still work, but both of them is too much. You may even want to limit it to a specific character/class that does not use any other resource just so you can make them more mechanically unique instead of a watered down "samey" kind of character.


If you absolutely must have both MP and TP along with Rage, then the only thing I can suggest is maybe making Rage a State instead and can only allowing certain skills to be used when "Enraged".

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

As a player, I prefer having just 1 or a maximum of 2 resources to manage per character. It makes things easier to handle.