Dispenser (Engineer)
Retinazer
From what I have seen from my time on the forums the community considers there to be a few issues with mana:
1. It is not rewarding enough
2. Mana potions are too spamable and are either too punishing or too rewarding depending on your stage in progression
3. It is not interactive enough
I have some suggestions that can hopefully fix this, and I'll try to explain my reasoning for each suggestion.
1. I propose that mana regen should not scale with total mana. By itself this suggestion would be horrible, but it is meant to work in tandem with some of my other suggestions as my end goal is to make mana trickier to manage but also more rewarding.
2. I think that the mana cap should be removed. Let players work for as much mana as they want. I feel that with my proposed changes this would not be too game breaking as maximum mana and mana regen are no longer linked players would be making tradeoffs by focusing completely on max mana while ignoring mana regen. Also, it would add more work to being able to use really powerful post-moonlord "super weapons".
3. I propose adding some "super weapons" that have a massive effect but cost a LOT of mana to use. This is meant to make it so that mana is more rewarding without making base magic weapons OP.
4. I think that mana sickness should no longer decrease the damage of mages but should mirror the effect of potion sickness and not allow the player to drink another for a time. This would solve the problem of how spammable mana potions are and stop the "super weapons" proposed in suggestion 3 from being used too frequently.
5. The change in suggestion 4 would mean that the mana flower (and its upgrades) would need to be reworked to keep them viable. I think that this could be done by replacing the auto-drinking of mana potions with a reduction to the duration of mana sickness, which along with keeping the mana flower viable would also make mana potions less brainless to use.
6. There should be more ways of attaining mana regen to help counterbalance suggestion 1 so I suggest introducing more accessories and buffs that provide mana regen.
7. Magic weapons should have their mana costs reduced a bit due to suggestion 1. The idea with this change is to make it so it is still possible for mages to build up enough mana to use their "super weapons" but still give them a cost to attacking at base.
8. I want to introduce a more interactive and interesting way to gain mana, so I propose introducing an upgradable tool that allows the player to siphon mana from monsters that requires them to get very close to them. This would hopefully give players a skill-based interactive alternative to waiting for their mana to regen while countering the effects of some of my proposed changes.
9. Since these changes would put more of an emphasis on mana regen and since mana would no longer give mana regen with these changes, I propose giving the goblin tinkerer a mana regen reforge for accessories. I think that this would provide an alternative for mages who are looking to increase how much mana they can use and would give players more choice about how they play mage.
10. My final suggestion is to free summoner from using mana as I feel that these changes would impact the class very negatively and it just seems like a relic of a time when summoner wasn't a class. I feel that this change would probably not be that impactful on the class and would help free it from being negatively impacted by these changes. If releasing summoner from using mana makes minion spamming too OP in the early game, there could just be a short cooldown between summoning minions outside a small radius surrounding the player.
I can't think of anything else off the top of my head, but I would appreciate feedback on my suggested changes and comments on effects that they may have that I didn't think about.
1. It is not rewarding enough
2. Mana potions are too spamable and are either too punishing or too rewarding depending on your stage in progression
3. It is not interactive enough
I have some suggestions that can hopefully fix this, and I'll try to explain my reasoning for each suggestion.
1. I propose that mana regen should not scale with total mana. By itself this suggestion would be horrible, but it is meant to work in tandem with some of my other suggestions as my end goal is to make mana trickier to manage but also more rewarding.
2. I think that the mana cap should be removed. Let players work for as much mana as they want. I feel that with my proposed changes this would not be too game breaking as maximum mana and mana regen are no longer linked players would be making tradeoffs by focusing completely on max mana while ignoring mana regen. Also, it would add more work to being able to use really powerful post-moonlord "super weapons".
3. I propose adding some "super weapons" that have a massive effect but cost a LOT of mana to use. This is meant to make it so that mana is more rewarding without making base magic weapons OP.
4. I think that mana sickness should no longer decrease the damage of mages but should mirror the effect of potion sickness and not allow the player to drink another for a time. This would solve the problem of how spammable mana potions are and stop the "super weapons" proposed in suggestion 3 from being used too frequently.
5. The change in suggestion 4 would mean that the mana flower (and its upgrades) would need to be reworked to keep them viable. I think that this could be done by replacing the auto-drinking of mana potions with a reduction to the duration of mana sickness, which along with keeping the mana flower viable would also make mana potions less brainless to use.
6. There should be more ways of attaining mana regen to help counterbalance suggestion 1 so I suggest introducing more accessories and buffs that provide mana regen.
7. Magic weapons should have their mana costs reduced a bit due to suggestion 1. The idea with this change is to make it so it is still possible for mages to build up enough mana to use their "super weapons" but still give them a cost to attacking at base.
8. I want to introduce a more interactive and interesting way to gain mana, so I propose introducing an upgradable tool that allows the player to siphon mana from monsters that requires them to get very close to them. This would hopefully give players a skill-based interactive alternative to waiting for their mana to regen while countering the effects of some of my proposed changes.
9. Since these changes would put more of an emphasis on mana regen and since mana would no longer give mana regen with these changes, I propose giving the goblin tinkerer a mana regen reforge for accessories. I think that this would provide an alternative for mages who are looking to increase how much mana they can use and would give players more choice about how they play mage.
10. My final suggestion is to free summoner from using mana as I feel that these changes would impact the class very negatively and it just seems like a relic of a time when summoner wasn't a class. I feel that this change would probably not be that impactful on the class and would help free it from being negatively impacted by these changes. If releasing summoner from using mana makes minion spamming too OP in the early game, there could just be a short cooldown between summoning minions outside a small radius surrounding the player.
I can't think of anything else off the top of my head, but I would appreciate feedback on my suggested changes and comments on effects that they may have that I didn't think about.
