Why mana? I've asked this question
before.
I started thinking, what if we did mana like how magic does. During a fight we build a type of mana, and then, we can cast spells, and let that mana type come back. The idea was kinda working like a more complicated version of energy building from Champions Online.
So as a thought experiment, I figured, lets look at Magic the Gathering. There's an MMO being made of it, and so I thought, what if I were designing that game? How would I make planeswalkers work?
Magic has different types of mana: White, Blue, Black, Red, Green, Colorless and Generic. Generic is paid with any kind of mana, while the other colors and colorless requires a specific mana type. But in MtG, mana is locked behind the land mechanic. Each turn you get to play a land, and that might mean that if you do not have a land in hand you would not gain mana that turn. The game also has mana ramp spells. Spells that allow additional lands to be put into play, and therefore the player trades a turn now, for greater mana faster the following turn.
In an MMO, you don't have turns. So you have a few choices, slow paced fighting, or fast paced movement and spell casting. This affects how complicated you can have a mana building mechanic. I think I'd have players pick a color first. Maybe ask them questions that would tie them to philosophies of a color, and probably tie some things to other choices (similar to how Guild Wars 2 does it).
So this version we could do something very similar to energy builders, but I think maybe a combination of other resource managements would be more interesting. For example, let's start with a Red Planeswalker. The Red walker would see some monsters out in the wild to kill, and so they would start by gathering mana.
Gather Resource: Mountain
Ability: 1 second, channel, add 1 Mountain resource (max x).
Lightning Strike
Ability: Use 1 Red Mana and 1 Generic Mana, deal 3 damage to a creature.
Pass Turn:
Ability: Takes Abilities off Cool down.
So when a fight starts, the player Gathers Resource, then Passes Turn. This resets their available mana, lets them add another resource, and resets their spells.
So why would a player not just always reset? Maybe the spell choices are a bit randomized.
Maybe there is a cooldown rotation (a time spent before they can cast spells, like an untap second). Maybe everyone in the fight has to pass before abilities reset (this would be a bad idea, could cause griefing other players in a party). Maybe, if the player Passes too many turns, they run out of draws and "lose".
Makes me think a bit of MegaMan.exe chip system.
I think each walker could be given a resource gathering attack. Something representative of their Color and Land type. They have to hit an enemy with it, to add a resource, which are like Death Knight runes. You generate mana of the type you want, up to a certain amount, and then spend them on your spells.
Passing the turn, resets what spells you can cast, but allows for you to generate another Land rune. While not doing so, generates generic mana that can be used to cast the spells as well.
We could also gate end of turn to a time limit.
This feels like it would be a slower, more methodical game type.
I feel like I should explore this idea more later. For right now, it feels like there is a conflict in player desire to ramp into powerful spells and having some sort of negative for not casting spells or using abilities.