Feedback:User/Erasculio/Replacing energy potions

ArenaNet mentioned how they would like energy potions to be a long term resource for players. In order for such system to work, players may not have infinite energy on the long run, which is basically what we had on GW1 - sure, in a battle you could run out of energy, but in the long term it was simply a matter of ending the battle and within a few seconds your energy would go back to maximum.

Which means, the reason why potions exist is not the cooldown in the middle of a fight - that's a limit only on the short run, not on the long run, and potions are there to work as a long term resource. Potions are there since at any given time players have a finite number of them, and thus a player has to think - do I use a potion now, and effectively lower my maximum energy pool until I buy a new potion? Or do I wait until a moment, who knows when, in which I will have a bigger need of energy?

So the limiting factors on potions, the reason why they are a long term resource, are:


 * Players need to have gold to buy them. Since players don't have infinite gold, they cannot have infinite potions, and thus no infinite energy.
 * Players need to go buy potions. Since there are no traders every two steps in the game, players who end without potions have to go find a trader in order to buy more potions if they want more.
 * Players may need inventory space for potions (I have no idea). Since players have no infinite inventory, it's (probably?) not possible to fit infinite potions on the inventory, even if players had infinite money.

Out of those three points, I don't agree with the first point (and neither with the third, but it's less of an issue since we don't even know it really exists). I do not want a game in which players who have more gold get an advantage over players who don't; eventually a better player with no gold would be worse than a bad player with a lot of gold who could spam potions on recharge. So I would like to suggest a system in which the middle point is the key to managing energy on the long run:

Create a Fountain of Power skill. It's not part of the skill bar; rather, it's an icon to the left of the energy bar, replacing the current icon for energy potions. Clicking on that icon gives you X% of your energy back (a percentage so it's equally useful no matter what's the level of the character). The limiting factor, though, is that the skill has charges - it may be used only 5 times, and then it needs to be recharged. Recharging it (up to a maximum of 5 charges again) may be done in two ways:

1) In any place where there is a merchant (who today sells energy potions), there would also be a NPC who recharges that skill for free.

2) Monsters would once in a while drop a power up which instantly adds one more charge to the skill, up to the maximum of 5. This is not an item to be stored on inventory or traded or whatever; it's something automatically used whenever a player gets it (yes, for my shame it's a lot like the orbs from Diablo 3).

We would then keep energy as a long term resource by making players wonder: do I refill my energy now, or do I wait in case I need more energy later? Just as today, if a player is truly without energy, he would have to go back to town; but instead of spending gold to buy potions, he would just have wasted time (and broken his gameplay session) in order to recharge Fountain of Power.

This would equalize everyone - no matter how much someone had grinded, he would also be limited by a maximum of 5 charges. A good player would know how to play while conserving energy, while a very bad player would be forced to take many back trips to town in order to recharge. We would also keep a way for players to get "energy potions" from monsters, without actually getting potions themselves.

The main problem of this idea, IMO, is the implementation of power ups (orbs ;_;) from monsters, which is something ArenaNet would have to add to the game. Another problem is how potions allow players to help each other - if I'm out of energy but you have 50 potions, you could give me one or two and I would be back in play. It would be good to have a way to donate charges to other players, so if two friends are together, one woouldn't have to wait while the other goes back to town to recharge. This could lead to some other problems ("Give me a charge or I will quit!!!1111!"), but then againt that kind of problem is already in the game ("Give me a potion or I will quit!!111"), which is something I expect to happen mostly in the endgame dungeons. This system would at least prevent some discrimination when making parties in those areas (no "GLF more - need to have at least 50 potions, or you're out").

A bit after having this idea, I was told that another upcoming MMORPG, Tera, has a similar system: players do not regenerate energy on the field, rather they need to go back to specific NPCs in order to recharge. While it promotes a "boomerang" gameplay (players go, and then back to a village to recharge, then go a bit more and come back again, etc), if softened a bit it could be a less taxing replacement for the energy potions. Ideally I would rather not have any system like this, and just replace it with an energy regeneration similar to the one seen on GW1 (with one change: each second would restore 1% of the maximum energy, not 1.3 points of energy, so the regeneration would be equally useful in all levels), but if ArenaNet wants to have energy as a long term resource...