To refill or not to refill: what should I do?

svn

I've returned to the RPG-shooter I was working on before my vacation, and one persistent question has been bugging me ever since I thought about it: should the Magic Meter, of which only lets you shoot when it's more than 0, automatically refill, or only refill with spells and power-ups? On the one hand, I don't want to spend sleepless nights wondering if I should have put a smaller pickup here or there. On the other hand, I don't want it to get too easy for the player.

Help me, GameSalad. You're my only hope. ( And NO, I don't need that whiny Luke Skywalker's help)

DrGlickert

Here's my opinion. The greatest difficulty in making a game is the 'balance' of game play. You don't want it SO easy that players with vast gaming experience find it too easy and get bored quickly with it. On the flip side, you don't want it so hard that casual players can't play it and get frustrated and quit.

So finding the correct balance in your game will be a challenge.

My thought is this, I would have the magic bar regenerate small increments over time (such as +1 mana every 1 second or something). Have mana potions in the game to increase this as well. Otherwise, if you don't have the mana increase over time, then you'll need to put more pick-ups and make purchasing mana potions cheap so players can use mana.

RPGs are incredibly difficult because it's easy to screw up the balance. WoW is a fantastic example of balance. There is a very specific reason why they are number 1 right now, and will be for a long time. It's because they balance the gameplay. Not one person has an advantage over everyone 1-on-1 is a different story, but overall, the gameplay is completely balanced.

However, I would suggest incrementing the mana over time for the player.