Skills Tool

[Ruse]

A little silly at this point, but pretty up-to-date and might come in handy later.

Check out the tool.

And an example of how it looks:



And there's Another skills tool right here.

Screenie of it when I get the time.

[Izzy]

That is extremely fun to play around with, thanks for posting Ruse!

[ComplexNuber]

Wow, thanks! Definitely a fun thing to play around with. I hope they keep this up to date, would be even more awesome if Anet made and supported an official version of one of these.

From what I understand though, skills will have a percentage cost of your base energy, so I don't understand what the static energy costs shown are meant to mean (maybe I'm wrong though?).

[Bahayur]

Really really good Ruse, there again a very nice thread!!!

Complex, I really don't know what to say for now, since this skill tool is pretty beta. I like the idea of static cost, since renders the game a lot more complexity and challenge in building your skill usage. But I don't see that coming just yet.

As you can see, in this video:


There are lots of different 'energy' pool sizes. That is not needed when skills take base-drain. In Dungeon Siege III for instance, the 'mana pool' is max 100, whatever character level you are. That is adequate for a fixed amount, since you can manage a lot better the skill usage. But, still in DS3, when you hit an enemy you have a chance to replenish some of your mana, giving it an "action rpg" style.

Maybe just some of the skills are percentage-based. Like Race skills or major class skills, but thats just argumentation.

For now, I can see just an 'normal-energy-pool' with fixed values!

Hugs!!!

Bahayur [Yuri]

[ComplexNuber]

Hmm, true. It's also possible skills have an energy cost that is both static and percentage (x + y%), but I don't know if that's getting too complicated for Anet's tastes. You are correct though, that a maximum energy value would be meaningless if everything was percentage based.

Having a look at the GW2 wiki now as I type, some things I'm pulling out; "The energy cost changes as the character levels up." (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skills).
Ah here we go!:

Energy is a long term resource used for the activation of active skills and maintenance of passive skills. Whenever a skill is activated, a percentage of the total energy (as opposed to an absolute cost) is expended. Energy recharges slowly in-combat and out-of combat, and it can be supplemented by an energy potion, which is on a recharge slower in-combat and faster out-of-combat state.[1] The intent of the fixed pool is to add strategy to large encounters and prevent players from being too defensive in their approach.[2]
The energy bar has been designed to be favorable to use offensive skills and less favorable to use defensive skills. Tactically moving out of combat can drain energy quickly. Rolling out of the way can use up to 5% of your energy bar; however, sidestepping and jumping currently does not use energy.

(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Energy)

Furthermore, from the discussion page of the energy page, some people have commented:

I wanted to know exactly that, and I'm confident that I've pinned down how energy costs work. The energy cost of a skill is a set percentage of your "base energy," which is your energy minus the energy you gain from your Willpower attribute. At the same level, Elementalists, Necromancers, and Rangers have equal base energy. I'm guessing all other professions will too, for simplicity's sake. The percentages I've found so far are 0.5%, 0.75%, 3%, 5%, 7%, 10%, 12%, 15%, 20%, and 50%. My research page has all the supporting data. --Emelend 21:13, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

This person linked a page here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User...nergy_Research where s/he has collected a relatively big amount of data on energy costs and maximum energy. If what s/he says is true then it actually seems like quite an elegant system if you ask me. The maximum energy and what appears as static costs to us (222 cost on skill tooltips, rather than 10%) could be a more immersive thing. Seeing "10% energy" makes you see the game mechanics up front and doesn't look as nice as a static cost, IMO. Interestingly, the one elite skill I can see in the list uses 50% energy - pretty damn hefty cost.

[Bahayur]

Well, if that's the case, the engine will be pretty cool to fiddle with.

I will make some philosophy from this data, if you don't mind.

* * * (Conclusion One: From your point of View) * * *

"Base Energy"(BE) = "Energy" (E) - Willpower Energy (WpE)
Or simply: BE = E -WpE

That means that the (%) usage of energy is not based on total pool. I like that since it renders larger energy pools more autonomy and therefore larger pools are better than smaller pools (which would be nullified in case of total energy pool percentage).
Another conclusion from this is that builds based on Willpower will have a lot more efficiency than non-willpower builds. Let's make an example:

* * *

If Trollius the Elementalist has a Total Willpower of 40, and each point of Willpower gives him 5 points of Energy, plus the base Energy Pool of his class for his level is 200, he has a total of 400 Energy Points (40.5)+(200). If he desires to use the MeteorShower skill, which has a base-cost of 123 and a 10% of percentage-based cost (arbitrary value) we have the following calculus:

Percentage Cost (PC) + Base Cost (BC)= Total Cost (TC)
In this case we have 20 PC + 123 BC = 143

Ok, that means that Trollius will spend 143 Energy Points from his pool of 400 (therefore 35.7% of his Total Pool)

* * *

Ruse the Elementalist is at the same level of Trollius, but with a build that grants her 130 Willpower. By the equation, she has a 200 BE + 650 WpE = 850 E.
When she decides to use the same skill that Trollius used, MeteorShower, we have a equal conclusion:

20 PC + 123 BC = 143 TC

But, when we check the percentage of her Energy Pool used, we have a obvious conclusion: she used only 16.4% of her total Energy, compared to 35.7% of Trollius.

* * * (End of Conclusion One) * * *
* * * (Conclusion Two: From the Researcher Point of View) * * *

That is the conclusion from your point of view, where there is and X and an Y%, that I find very very cool. From the researcher, we simply cut off the X.

But by doing that, I find that we will have very large pools for very small point cost, let's take a look at the results from our previous characters:

Trollius will use 20 Energy of his Energy Pool of 400 (5.0%)
Ruse will use 20 Energy of his Energy Pool of 850 (2.3%)

It's obvious from that conclusion that, if that's the case (BE% Cost and nothing more) the weight of WpE will be very, very small; like each Willpower Point, only One Energy Point, giving the following perspective:

Trollius will use 20 Energy of his Energy Pool of 240 (8.3%)
Ruse will use 20 Energy of his Energy Pool of 330 (6.0%)

We can notice that from a 1/2 perspective (2.3/5), we came to almost a 3/4 perspective (6.0/8.3) of Energy Usage, therefore if we have only BE% and not BE%+BC the larger Willpower builds will have less advantage, no matter the Energy Cost.

* * * (End of Conclusion Two) * * *
* * * (Conclusion Three: Based on further Research ) * * *

From the calculations I've made based on this research we can make an simple conclusion of observation:

Level__Race______Class_________Energy__Willp.__BE
1_____Human____Elementalist______225___20___125
2_____Human____Elementalist______270___24___150
3_____Human____Elementalist______315___28___175

Level 1: E (225) - BE (125) = 100 (20.5)
Level 2: E (270) - BE (150) = 120 (24.5)
Level 3: E (315) - BE (175) = 140 (28.5)

That means that for each point of Willpower we have Five points of Energy, as I assumed in the previous examples. That really proves the theory of BE%.

Also, from the calculations, we can see an static advancement of Energy Pool, as the WpE evolves always the same proportion as BE do. That means that the Energy Cost will always have the same percentage, no matter the level!!!!

Unless, of course, we put Build Willpower in the calculation (from traits, gear, talents, etc.) then we have a pretty beautiful Energy Pool calculations, that rewards those who give a damn about Energy Pool size.

* * * (End of Conclusion Three) * * *

Final Conclusion:
Pretty nifty indeed, will be very cool to play!!!

Hugs!!!

Bahayur [Yuri]

[Winterbay]

I noticed that site acouple of weeks back and thought it nice. It will be interesting when all skills are added, and probably really useful as well.

Also, I like the conclusions of the above post and the fact that someone else than me likes to crunch numbers and make up formulas. That said, I usually go for things that look cool, but numbers are nice. It is even better if I can make arbitary numbers bigger

[Ruse]

I added another skills tool to the first post. I'm not sure how up-to-date it is, I haven't had a chance to thoroughly check it out and see if the ele skills, for instance, got updated and all that jazz.

[Ewensu]

Thanks a lot for feeding my addiction...I've set out a couple of hours to go through all possible builds with the grit and substance of my determination...

[stingwolf2000]

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/...itch=2f360c137


so far it looks cool