Energy Bar Discussion

Im not disagreeing with that. However this approach can be rather clumsy really. Cause after all you are guessing. My main problem is that some characters are very energy orientated and in order to play effectively they have to be very lucky since probability plays a very large part in guesses, even if they are educated ones. Obviously this puts a player of this variety at a disadvantage.

heh, how about you totally remove health bars from the enemy, and let only, say, warriors/rangers/necros see them, while letting mesmers/monks/eles see a energy bar. then when you are attacking a particular enemy, you 'light' up that foe's energy/health bar to the rest of your party.

idea is that w/r/n classes can tell when an enemy's going all soft and vulnerable, and a me/mo/e is much more attuned to the ether flows around that foe.

probably a bad idea, lol.

I think JoDiamonds really tore Thanos a new one. So you know which side of the argument I am taking. But, he did this for good reason, not to be cruel but to enlighten. I appreciate the dissecting of the entire argument all while keeping a civil tone. But onto my two cents.

The implementation of this idea would certainly lead to changes in the game play but I think they would be for the worse. The introduction of enemy energy bars would remove one of the last bastions of skill in the game. Keeping track of all those numbers is what separates the good players from the bad. I don't know about you but I want some way to separate myself from the guy who picked the game up yesterday other then the fact I have unlocked more skills, have more gold, or better items. All those things come with time, they will catch up eventually so what would you have over them then? This game would be forgettable if you could pick it up and master it in less then a week.

This does not mean that I am against the team energy bars. I couldn't see this as having a huge effect on any of the team dynamics. You can tell your team how much health and energy you have by ctrl clicking and there is a bar to reflect the health but not for energy why? The chat channel becomes very crowded with people spamming their energy and screaming on Vent or TS how they need energy. This would fix all those problems because it would be clear to see. Other then cleaning up one of the channels of communication nothing too terrible could happen seeing as it would only affect a few energy regain skills, BiP mostly. This implementation is not crucial though Anet has other things to worry about with their expansion coming out, skill balancing, and server problems.

He didnt tear me a new one at all. I still have no idea where he's coming from. But he didn't bother to carry on the discussion, so we could try and understand one another. I really don't understand all these references to skill. How is guessing what your enemies energy is skillful. You can pretend it is, but in all fairness you have no real idea what the enemies energy status is when fighting and therefore you never no whether you're skills are of any use or not. You just have to assume they are.

My intent was certainly not to actually upset anyone. I hadn't commented more because I felt I had said a great deal to explain my views. If someone still didn't understand, I don't feel there's much more I can say. Thanas did not (nor did anyone else) respond to any particular points saying it made sense or not; I can't reasonably respond after I make an exceptionally long post stating my views and someone says, "I don't understand. Could you clarify?" What am I supposed to do? Repeat everything? I have no idea where the confusion is, and it almost sounds like someone is trying to bait me.

I feel I understand Thanas' position and viewpoint just fine, and completely disagree with pretty much everything. I can't imagine it's useful for me to repeatedly say I disagree. It just turns into a flame war at that point.

I think the original post and topic was fine, and people saying they agree or disagree with things in general is good for others to see where people stand. I really don't have more to say on this subject. It's just not so important to me, and I've really had my say at this point. I happiest to simply bow out of this discussion now.

That usually leads into everyone clicking their bars. Nothing like flexing peanuts.

When playing as monk, I ctrl-click serveral times and I still can't get people to stop. I just tell them something like "Oops, your dead...shouldn't of ran ahead while I was low on energy."

As a player of many caster classes, with a drainmes and a Mo/n, I want this suggestion so bad...

Both for allies and for enemies. I like the enemies energy bar because it adds a new level of strength and deception, more strategies.

I feel it adds more strategies too. I feel the other approach as to guessing an enemies energy is clumsy. I mean we have info on the condition of an enemy, whether they are hexed, poisoned etc. When energy plays such an integral part to the game why are there no indicators for it?

I disagree with this idea. It's a good one, no doubt. But I think in the more tense situations of the game, you're going to have a good group that's not going to pull that kind of stuff(such as relying on guildmates, or getting a random group together on vent/ts/etc). I just mainly disagree because I think it's another thing people don't need to worry about. I think it should be the caster's job to make sure they're full on energy before attacking(coming from a person who's main characters are monk, elementalist, and mesmer). If some dumb warrior is going to aggro a group without knowing your energy level, he's going to do it when he knows your energy level too. That, or he won't even look at it(because the part window is optional outside of towns, which is where I assume such information would be put), and he'll just go on with his normal business of being stupid.

I'm not in a guild, nor do I have TS or Vent, and I don't plan on doing either of them any time soon. And for the 85% of the time that you don't have tense situations, then an energy bar would be most beneficial. The point of an energy bar is for players who do not understand that when you ctrl+click your energy bar, you aren't showing off, but trying to indicate your energy status. People will pay attention to a little blue bar on their party screen more than someone ctrl+clicking. Also for those necros who do energy maintenance, then a bar would be most beneficial. Or if you are in a party with a monk and you notice that their energy bar is getting very low, you may need to do some of your own healing, and saving energy for healing spring, or healing breeze (W/Mo) rather than using a skill. The last bit, would be very helpful, because in the middle of a battle, you may not notice that your monk is low on energy, but a quick glance at the party bar would tell you everything you need to know, in a half second.

I am asking for this to be implemented to aid those classes that attack energy as well as to benefit allies. As I said before we have information on hexes, conditions etc. If a foe is hexed or has a condition we can see this and thus take advantage of the situation. Strategy should be dynamic not static. What makes a good tactician and a skilled player is the ability to adapt to a situation. Giving people infomation on hexes/conditions helps promote this dynamic form of play as well as teamplay, since they are able to react to the actions of their team mates through this simple visual aid. This visual aid does not hinder the team. Were it to be removed, under the logic of others, you should guess that a certain player has a hex/condition on them. After you guess you cast a spell which utilises the hex/condition status of your foe and if the spell that you cast that attacks hexes/conditions doesn't work then that player has no hex/condition. Surely you can see that this is ridiculously logwinded and very labourious, so much so that it would slow down gameplay. So why can you not extend this logic to the energy bar situation.

I would also like to note that I did suggest that you should be able to toggle energy bars.

Its sometimes a good idea to understand another persons argument and why they have come to the conclusions they have. You still don't neccesarily have to agree with them. Knowledge is better than ignorance.

*bump*

I am also against the idea of showing the energy levels for enemy monsters, and especially in PvP. Reason: it makes the game easier, and frankly, PvE isn't hard enough. I'm not asking for a total super-mega-challenge gauntlet, but I feel that seeing the enemy energy level would overpower energy denial, especially in PvP. Oooh, I just had 10 energy sapped from me, good thing I was only at 1 to begin with. I think an implementation like this into PvP would lead to unbalance and little energy across casters. Putting it into PvE would make things too easy; energy denial is a delicate art, and making it too easy just seems cheap.

As for teammates energy levels, I would be fine with that showing up, as I cannot generally trust PUG teammates to announce their energy levels before they get to 0, and 3 energy regen wont be that helpful.

Yeah, being a mesmer and fighting people OR NPCs gives you NO SATISFACTION! duh duh duh! no no no! yeah!

and I'd really like to see how much energy my opponents have. Is my Energy Burn spell actually making a dent in that dolyak's energy, or is he like an everlasting gob stopper of energy? I'd also like it if I could SEE how long until the spell is over. Counting a few seconds without a clock is annoying, especially when there is one and it's at the top of the freakin screen.

What does this mean?

I'm completely for this, given 50% of my necromancer's function is supplying energy to partied monks.

I have a feeling that most of those players who disagree with this idea are not of a class where energy manipulation is important.

for friends: yes that would be nice and a good enhancement.

for foes: never!
i'm playing my domination mesmer a lot especially in the tombs and showing an enemy energy bar would just make it LOADS to EASY!
the point for a energy drainer is, that he must calculate how much the enemy can have left, if he is shown that by the game it would become imbalanced.

I am not for this idea. Strategizing is more important. I mean if there was a feature where you could see the other players mana then im gonna get really really mad! ITS A FREAKING DISADVANTAGE! If you run out of mana and the other team knows they gonna PUMMEL YOU! And gang bang you. I like the idea but this is not something thats a nessecity. It would help tho. So i guess i agree and disagree. Oh i forgot to tell u that all MANA users and Warriors if they run out of Mana means GUILD WARS IS RUINED!

But please can you tell me how you are meant to know if he is draining energy himself or using energy regen or has mana increasing spells. How do you know then?

Dam...i should of said this b4. GOD!!! I HATE WRITING STUFF OVER! Guild Wars would suck ass if this happens. I HOPE IT DOES NOT! Making that you can see who has how much mana after u use it and b4 also the degens and regens. il say this VERY clearly.
ANY MANA USER WILL BE DEAD AND BRING DOWN ALL CASTING TYPE CHARACTERS! You know why? Il be very pissed too because if your a mesmer and you run out of mana usually the enemy does not know but if they do they will PUMMEL YOU! THEY WILL GANG BANG YOU! Meaning if your a healer YOUR AT MAJOR DIS ADVANTAGE! I mean you run out of mana you DIE in a matter of seconds and you cannot do a damn thing. Meaning you fail and everyone goes down to hell with you. I beg you people! DO NOT GIVE THIS SUGGESTION! It will RUIN GW!!!

i watch him, i see the spells he uses and i have experience in my job as a mesmer.
combining this, i can always tell you when you are out of mana.

the clue behind this is, that you need to monitor an enemy a few seconds to tell, and cannot switch the enemy and then immediatly know how much he has... that would be imbalanced.
if you would see for sure in 1 sec that he has less than 10 mana -> mind wrack, energy burn --> 170 dmg in 2sec. THAT is imba!

What about the fact that many animations are very similar. What about other players providing energy? Are you always sure what the energy levels of all enemies at a given time are? Are you always optimising your offensive capabilities? Or are you just playing a guessing game for a large majority of the time?

Also if you can currently observe player health and select the weakest? Why is it so wrong to use this tactic with energy?

I'd like to note that these energy bars should only be available through the selection of a foe and not be displayed in a similar manner to for example the group screen where every allies health is in plain view.

animations??? what the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO du you look at the animations?? there is a skill monitoring bar and that is what you should watch not the animations.
sry if i understand this wrong now, but atm you sound pretty unskilled at this territory.

and no i'm not always 100% sure, but you can never be that sure in a battle, that is just realistic and i think it's good that way.
i'm also not guessing all the time, as i said, you gotta have experience in this job, that's why mesmer is not an easy job. you need an instinct.

Like you do with health! No don't show health bars, it gives you too much of an advantage! What a ridiculous argument. If anything it makes teams think more about their energy management and strangely enough I think you'd find both teams would have this information. Its hardly one sided. If anything it would help reduce the number of Warrior monk teams and bring about a bit more team variety.

You can only watch one player at a time. So would be required to watch player animations to ascetain the activities of the whole team and be sure of the overall energy setup.

So why not remove health bars? Then you won't always be 100% sure of health, thats more realistic and good that way.

*bump*

OMFG yes, i am a blood necro and my meal ticket is blood is power, i would ove to know how much energy someone has in my party, and this guys idea is EXACTLY what i would like to see

About my teams energy - sure thing. Why not.
About seeing it on enemies - In PVP -> a big NO, NO! That would just totally imbalance mesmers in PVP and i'd say they would get top priority target even before the monks.

In PVE... i'd like it though. Why? because all those morons that think mesmers do nothing and just sit around can see the effort of my work too.

Why would it unbalance mesmers?

There does not need to be a bar, just the number like ___ of 80 energy or ___ of 42 energy or ___ of 20 energy. It can even be ___/Max

On the whole I like this idea.

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but it could give too much of a strategic advantage to the non casters. For instance Meteors takes X amount of time to cast and as soon as it is chosen 25 energy dissappears from the energy bar; the time between cast and action isn't instantanious. Any player taking notice and worth his salt would see it coming and just run before the meteors start to fall.

But we can tell from the animations what is being cast you may cry!! Not strictly true, in the heat of battle a number of things could stop you seeing that ele sneaking off a quick firestorm.

So on the whole for allies YES for enemies NO.

/signed - for the trillionth time, both for allys and for enemies!!

However if Anet actually ever does this ill probably crap my pants

i agree as well but i think it would also be nice if adrenelin was shown for your own character too.

/signed

/signed.

To those who claim they can work out the amount of energy a caster has by looking at the skills they use, yes, that is possible, provided some conditions are met:
You know roughly (to the nearest 10) how much the caster had when you started off. I suppose it is possible to judge this from the energy cost of the skills a caster uses, provided you know that they aren't morons/desperate.
You have a perfect or near perfect knowledge of the energy costs of all skills
No-one on the enemy team is doing energy regen, or if they are you know roughly how much and for how long
No-one else on your team has any energy denial skills they are using on them
You can count out 4 seconds near perfectly (slightly over the amount of time it takes to regen 5 energy, with standard caster regen)

This seems to rely substantially on luck, and some amazing skills on your part. Not the sort of thing I would want to try and ease myself into, it seems kinda all or nothing to me. However, a small blue bar under their health allows you to guess at how effective your skills are. You may still be wrong, a half full blue bar may mean 50 energy (in very extreme cases on elems) or it could mean around 20 (on normal casters) or 30 (when they are using a +27 energy item) or anywhere in between, it is impossible to tell, but a nearly empty bar will be a pretty good indication that we shouldn't waste our energy draining skills on them, and a nearly full bar a pretty good indication that we should use them.

It will not overpower mesmers, just as seeing a health bar does not overpower warriors and damage dealers, and seeing when they are using a skill does not overpower rangers and other disruptors.

Also, to those who claim that a health bar is more realistic than an energy bar, because wounds etc. would be visible, it should therefore be fairly granular, nor as smooth as it is not, as it is impossible to tell with great accuracy how much damage something has taken from one look. Of course, you can see if they are badly wounded or not, but not to the extend where you can tell the slight amount of health lost from 3 points of degen.

Finally, to those who say that there is no real way to tell how much energy someone has on this magical world, because it's not realistic, I'll concede that I can come up with no valid counterargument. I can, make an equally valid assumption about this truly unknown plane, and state that the magical attunement spellcasters feel allows them to sense the magical aura of all beings around them, spiritually feeling the energy the others posses, as it is channelled through them and into the pseudo-physical manifestations called skills. Right, that's everyone but R/W or W/R off the hook. It's no argument at all, but neither is that we can't sense the energy levels of people around us, thus neither can the guy I play as an evil raiser of the dead.

there was a thread here recently about a mantra of ether which would help monks or other to counter energy-drain mesmers a bit...
they already think energy-drain mesmers are overpowered.

i do not think so, but you think they do not have enough power yet!
there are very simple tactics to know then an enemy is at zero energy, it's called mind wrack.
but only why there seems to be no build on a website that shows you a mesmer build easy enough to play for you, and you cannot think up one by yourself, you do not have to think other ppl are as simple-minded as you.

there are ppl out there, who have been playing a mesmer for month now in the tombs and who seem to know more about mesmers than you do, so accept that for the holy frog's sake!

and again (for starters): there is no energy bar for enemies, because you should not be able to switch target and be able to read his energy in 1 sec.
end-of-discussion, my last word

part of the thrill of being mesmer is that you DON'T know your enemy's energy! if we did, alot of the risk is removed, since any skill depending on the enemy energy will now work exactly as planned!
no, i love mesmer, but we must never be able to know the enemy's energy. imagine the abuse, Mind Wrack would be easy, and no more useless energy burns on 0-energy foes.... there would simply be too much certainty, in what is the most uncertain and unknowable class in the game.

on allies, though, i fully agree! it is particularly annoying, having been monk, when i am my mesmer fighting away and the team starts to die off, next thing I know i'm all alone. was there a call for retreat? no. did the monk spam 0 energy? no. even if they did, i'm not sure we would notice. if I could see the energy bar of an ally monk, for example, i would know how much damage we are taking, and whether we may need to change tactics. i don't always notice ally health, but give me the monk's energy, and i would be a much more concienscious player!

and having not played necro to a high level, i cant really comment on their viewpoint, but i imagine it would be highly value by the blood mages, giving them more control over their level of support... SO MANY TIMES i've had Blood Ritual cast on me when i'm fine for energy, but it isn't their fault.

i think allies should be able to see each other's energy level - a number would be better than a bar, though more cumbersome to implement - a number because what if an E/Mo healer has low energy storage, and people naturally expect 30% energy to be sufficient, but really it isn't.. or something like that... but, i suppose a bar would do.

now that i've read through the posts, there seems an argument over how a player can currently discern an enemy's energy level. well, any good mesmer will go for a) monks b) elementalists... and, any experienced mesmer will have learned to anticipate actions and predict effects... on energy and on the playing field. being masters of prevention, we have learned to guess at enemy energy... MESMERS are the only ones who can REALLY turn this knowledge to their DIRECT ADVANTAGE!

if you give mesmers this much, the game will become unbalanced, and mesmers will be nerfed, and i will miss the old days of uncertainty and risk.

i venture to presume that those who petition FOR seeing enemy energy, have not played mesmer, and do not know that to know this would open too many opportunities to imagine.

i am against it because i don't want to see the playing field unbalanced; sure, I could probably Dominate anything i play... but then the nerfs will come.

i also believe that energy/mana is arcane, mysterious, and the "hidden" brother to health. it is not shown, because that's the way the game was built, and it was for very valid reasons! dont ask, just think.

-- Talented mesmers will instantly realise the incredible advantage such a modification would give. At the moment they are unfavourable because not many play them well. That does not mean they are inherently weak or in need of a boost, certainly NOT!

this post is somewhat messy - but i think i have got my point across: no to seeing foe's energy.