Originally posted by
Nutarama
Okay, let's say that there is an explicit game design need for the "on use" effects to work as they currently are, and that mana-tracking affixes fulfill the role that I'm suggesting. I can see that for Rathpith Globe and Gluttony specifically, with a personal maybe on Shroud of the Lightless's Shade Form trigger. However:
- Why is Disintegrator worded "25% chance to gain a Siphoning Charge when you use a Skill" and not "25% chance to gain a Siphoning Charge when you Spend Mana on a Skill"?
- Why is Tawhoa, Forest's Strength worded "35% chance to gain an Endurance Charge when you use a Fire skill" and not "35% chance to gain an Endurance Charge when you Spend Mana on a Fire skill"?
- Why is Eber's Unification worded "Trigger Level 10 Void Gaze when you use a Skill" and not "Trigger Level 10 Void Gaze when you Spend Mana on a Skill"?
- Why is Zerphi's Last Breath worded "Grants Last Breath when you Use a Skill during Flask Effect, for (450-600)% of Mana Cost" and not "Grants Last Breath when you Spend Mana on a Skill during Flask Effect, for (450-600)% of Mana Cost"?
- Why is Lightpoacher worded "Trigger Level 20 Spirit Burst when you Use a Skill while you have a Spirit Charge" and not "Trigger Level 20 Spirit Burst when you Spend Mana on a Skill while you have a Spirit Charge"?
- Why is there a rare affix "Trigger a Socketed Spell when you Use a Skill" but no equivalent rare affixes for mana tracking; e.g. "Trigger a Socketed Spell when you Spend Mana" or "Trigger a Socketed Spell after Spending 200 Mana on Skills"?
I'm not trying to tell you you're doing it wrong, I'm trying to get you to think more about the design of specific game aspects and how they interact with other game aspects. "On use" effects interact negatively with channeling skills, and it can get pretty silly when Cyclone can activate them pretty seamlessly by tapping the button very quickly to get around the restrictions of "on use" triggers.
P.S. Just saying "This is intentional" isn't an argument if you don't give a valid reason for the intention. If the intent is because it makes gameplay sense, that's one thing. If it's intentional because Chris Wilson said so on a day when he was depressed, maybe you should re-think your intentions.
P.P.S. The lunch and moving house examples fall apart if you move the analogy from money to mana cost. A Channeled skill is more like charging your friend $12 an hour to move house because the longer it lasts, the more it costs. The restaurant would be some kind of nouveau establishment where instead of charging you by the item or the plate instead they charge you by the amount of time you spent in the restaurant - if you're not eating (analagous to hitting something), they're still going to charge you for being there.
P.P.P.S. Channeled skills aren't like really slow melee skills because if you're in a Temp Chains map with a Trypanon and use Glacial Hammer, while you'll have a bunch of time to look at the animation you'll only get charged one bulk mana cost up front. With Channeled skills, you get charged a small amount of mana every so often just for keeping the channel maintained. It's not just the length that's variable, but also the mana cost and (for some skills) the damage due to a stage or charge-up mechanic.
At a base level, it's considered good for bonuses to be better with some things than other things. Generally speaking there will be different bonuses that are better with those other things instead, which helps make different builds feel different, and have people make different choices about how they value things depending on what their character is doing.
I'm not trying to tell you you're doing it wrong, I'm trying to get you to think more about the design of specific game aspects and how they interact with other game aspects.
We already do think a lot about those aspects. In all the cases you list, there has been a discussion, in some cases a long back and forth one, possibly trying several versions and seeing how they play, about the specific nature of different ways to accomplish what certain stats are trying to do and which one is the best fit for the design intent for what that specific stat is trying to achieve.
All your "when you spend mana" examples would exclude people using Blood Magic or Eldritch Battery, who never spend mana. "When you pay a mana cost" wouldn't work with reservation skills (particularly of note with mines having all changed to such recently). "When you spend Life, Mana or Energy Shield" is definitely possible, albeit long enough to be a little clunky - we'd use that if we felt that was the right one for a specific stat. All of these are better or worse with different categories of skills, and that's good. We do grant some bonuses for spending mana, and those tend to be quite good with channelled skills.
The lunch and moving house examples fall apart if you move the analogy from money to mana cost. A Channeled skill is more like charging your friend $12 an hour to move house because the longer it lasts, the more it costs. The restaurant would be some kind of nouveau establishment where instead of charging you by the item or the plate instead they charge you by the amount of time you spent in the restaurant - if you're not eating (analagous to hitting something), they're still going to charge you for being there.
Of course the analogy no longer applies to those bonuses if you fundamentally change what it was about. The analogy was specifically written to match the case we were discussing - bonuses you are given for using skills. Yes, an analogy that matches up to paying mana costs will be different to one that matches using the skill, because those things are different things. Buy swapping the bonus you get as an addition to the cost you pay to do something, you're constructing a different analogy, and your ability to do that doesn't change that the original analogy still matches the different thing it's analagous to.
You didn't ask in your first post why those triggers weren't done as "when you spend" instead, you asked why triggers that were explicitly "when you use" weren't happening multiple times while channelling. The reason for that is that you aren't using the skill multiple times, and those analogies where specifically to explain that distinction - that you can be doing something for a long time, but still only have done it once.
In the original version of the moving example, mana cost would be the work you put in to carry a box of stuff. You put in that work (paying the mana cost) repeatedly over the ongoing task of helping a friend move, but if you were offered a one-of bonus for helping move, you're still only going to get that bonus once.
Spending Mana and using the skill are not the same thing, and they happen at different times. There are different bonuses tied to both those things, and they apply at the times they say they do. Which one a specific stat uses is chosen by the designers based on what they want it to work with, what they don't want it to be abusive with, and often long descussions with me about all the edge cases of each possible implementation.
Channelled Skills can have one use of the skill last as long as you want, but require that you pay the mana cost repeatedly to continue the use of that skill. Non-channelled skills last a fixed time, and require only a single payment (but frequently a higher mana cost than channelled skills). This means that for channelled skills you can spend mana multiple times for one use of the skill. That's not fundamentally any different than the difference between a single target skill which hits one enemy, and an AoE skill which hits a lot of enemies. One of them will generate a lot of hits, and thus benefit more from bonuses like Life gain on hit, despite each being used once. This means some kinds of bonuses are better with one skill than the other - and that's good, because it means different builds will value those bonuses differently.
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