[Merged] Cooldown Thread

[C2B]

Posted it on the last page already, but....

 

We had discussed various versions of the breastplate before the PA article went up. Reactions to the one on the PA site caused us to go with a more traditional breastplate for the final design

[Gfted1]

QQ about how boobplate wasnt realistic

 

Wait... you're a moderator and you posted this? >_

 

QQ? Really?

 

Whats me being a mod have to do with anything? Do you think we are employees of Obsidian? Or we shouldnt be allowed to post our opinions? And as you see above, I was correct.

[Merin]

QQ about how boobplate wasnt realistic

 

Wait... you're a moderator and you posted this?

 

QQ? Really?

 

Whats me being a mod have to do with anything? Do you think we are employees of Obsidian? Or we shouldnt be allowed to post our opinions?

 

I'm sorry - I guess I'm placing too high a standard on being a moderator. I would think a moderator would be one seeking to stay largely agnostic on post content outside of breaking forum rules, and would be someone who, at best, encourages discussion.

 

Describing anyone stating their opinions as "QQ"ing just, well, seems both juvenile and un-moderator-like.

 

It has nothing to do with your given opinion a subject. It has to do with etiquette, decorum and leading by example.

[Gfted1]

QQ about how boobplate wasnt realistic

 

Wait... you're a moderator and you posted this? >_

 

QQ? Really?

 

Whats me being a mod have to do with anything? Do you think we are employees of Obsidian? Or we shouldnt be allowed to post our opinions?

 

I'm sorry - I guess I'm placing too high a standard on being a moderator. I would think a moderator would be one seeking to stay largely agnostic on post content outside of breaking forum rules, and would be someone who, at best, encourages discussion.

 

Describing anyone stating their opinions as "QQ"ing just, well, seems both juvenile and un-moderator-like.

 

It has nothing to do with your given opinion a subject. It has to do with etiquette, decorum and leading by example.

 

Ah, theres your problem.

[Sargallath Abraxium]

~ popcorn ~

 

 

 

 

...WHO LUVS YA, BABY!!...

[Hypevosa]

Moderators are people to - expect them to act as such. Their only real responsibility is to be fair when they must pass judgement on something else - they need not be saints in their posting habits.

[metiman]

In addition to the cooldown problem I'm also concerned about the lack of rounds. This seems to push RTwP more towards true RT, but it also seems to make it less likely that an auto-pause feature will be implemented. Without autopause IE games would have lost a great deal of strategic feel. That feature was very important to my enjoyment of all of the IE games.

[Hypevosa]

a round is just 6 seconds, I mean, if you say this spell takes 4 seconds to cast but this one takes 12, rounds aren't really a necessary mechanic. They're just there for necessity in pen and paper because measuring out the EXACT times it could take to perform certain actions would be a ridiculous amount of number crunching and experimenting and extrapolating to put on a DM. One battle would take forever >_>

[ogrezilla]

In addition to the cooldown problem I'm also concerned about the lack of rounds. This seems to push RTwP more towards true RT, but it also seems to make it less likely that an auto-pause feature will be implemented. Without autopause IE games would have lost a great deal of strategic feel. That feature was very important to my enjoyment of all of the IE games.

maybe I'm missing something, but how would this change the autopause feature at all?

[Shevek]

8 hours? no. I think its pretty safe to assume we won't be seeing something resembling the Dragon Age system though.

 

Probably not, but will it be different enough? Nothing much to do now but wait and see. I think the community has made itself clear and there isn't a lot more to say.

the quotes all indicate that they are looking to use cooldowns to mimic a combination of the vancian system and resting while eliminating rest spamming. I expect it to feel more like BG or IWD than DA from everything we've been told so far.

 

I hope you are right. I recall JE saying that resting was out.

 

Josh said that they want to have resting mechanic that will avoid rest spamming .

 

 

 

I've talked with Tim about this for a while and here's the thing: camping out in the wilderness and setting watches and getting ambushed by jackasses has a great classic A/D&D feel to it, but it got pretty silly in games like IWD2. I'd like to build in reasonable mechanics that make you rest in the wilderness, but I don't want it to result in the sort of degenerate "rest after every fight" stuff we've faced in the past.

 

 

Source

 

That's great. I was just going off the quote where he said:

 

It is likely that they will not be able to select from all of those things in the moment but unlikely that we will require the player to rest to change what he or she has access to.

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60372-merged-vancian-magic-system-and-cooldowns/page__st__360

 

Maybe they are reconsidering things a bit.

[PsychoBlonde]

If it is not like WoW where you are spamming multiple hot-keys to a the rhythm of the war drums (cool downs) similar to ridiculous game of guitar hero (keyboard hero?) then I guess it might be ... playable.

 

I expect they may adopt a system similar to what they have in Dungeons and Dragons Online, where certain very powerful, devastating spells--Implosion and Wail of the Banshee, Symbol spells--have a lengthy cooldown. But these aren't simple damaging spells that have a cooldown to force you to use other spells in sequence in order to keep your DPS going, these are "I win this fight now" spells. Spells and abilities that actually do damage have minimal cooldowns and you can freely spam them as much as you want within the limits of your spell point pool, even ones that put up long term AOE effects like Wall of Fire and Blade Barrier have pretty minimal cooldowns--you can blanket the battlefield with them if you REALLY want to. Waste of SP, usually, but you CAN.

 

It's a very fun system combat-wise, with a TON of VERY useful spells--even the oddball situational ones are great sometimes. The cooldowns keep casters from becoming Wailbots and make you think about when it's most efficient to use the big whammy while not leaving you stuck with only one or two big whammies per rest, so your poor casters have nothing to do after they shoot their load--casters can solo just as well as any other class, and while they do need to refresh their SP periodically, it's not an every-other-fight thing. The cooldowns don't force you to sit there counting the seconds in order to hit some DPS target. That would be a HORRIBLE system in a game where you can run up to 6 characters simultaneously.

 

What I would like to see, however, is if they do go for cooldowns of this kind, is to put in the ability for you to order a character to use the big ability even while it's on cooldown, and they'll throw it when it becomes available. This would make managing this sort of thing with a 6-person party a lot easier. And it might make for entertaining combats when you forget you gave that order and they throw a big spell you no longer need where you didn't want it to go. :D

Edited October 2, 2012 by PsychoBlonde

[metiman]

In addition to the cooldown problem I'm also concerned about the lack of rounds. This seems to push RTwP more towards true RT, but it also seems to make it less likely that an auto-pause feature will be implemented. Without autopause IE games would have lost a great deal of strategic feel. That feature was very important to my enjoyment of all of the IE games.

maybe I'm missing something, but how would this change the autopause feature at all?

 

Well how would they decide when to engage pause without a 6 second or some x second long round or turn? It seems like they'd almost have to invent something that works the same as a round or turn in order to automatically engage pause in a fair manner for both your party and the enemy. All of that was handled automatically in the IE games.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

The biggest problem with memorization is that while it CAN be implemented in a way that encourages strategic gameplay (asking stuff of the townsfolk, reading dusty tomes, hunting for rumors about your enemies etc.), it would require an IMMENSE amount of resources. Think about it, for a moment - every area, most monster types and every important boss would need its own set of information sources. It's just not worth the trouble. If you decide to use a different system (eg. cooldowns), you can create a lot more content.

[Tale]

Well how would they decide when to engage pause without a 6 second or some x second long round or turn?

By pausing per character. Whenever the character has their next action available.

[ogrezilla]

my expectations (largely speculation based on their comments) is that within the time of a single encounter, the system they create will play almost exactly like the old IE games. I think it will be the method of recovering your spells outside of combat that will differ.

[ogrezilla]

In addition to the cooldown problem I'm also concerned about the lack of rounds. This seems to push RTwP more towards true RT, but it also seems to make it less likely that an auto-pause feature will be implemented. Without autopause IE games would have lost a great deal of strategic feel. That feature was very important to my enjoyment of all of the IE games.

maybe I'm missing something, but how would this change the autopause feature at all?

 

Well how would they decide when to engage pause without a 6 second or some x second long round or turn? It seems like they'd almost have to invent something that works the same as a round or turn in order to automatically engage pause in a fair manner for both your party and the enemy. All of that was handled automatically in the IE games.

 

when one of your characters is ready for a new command, the game pauses.

[metiman]

Hmm. I suppose so. I wonder if they plan to implement something like that.

[Jaesun]

Matt Barton is interviewing Josh, so we may have some more info form that interview on cooldowns™.

[ogrezilla]

Hmm. I suppose so. I wonder if they plan to implement something like that.

I hope so. I would love to have the option to set it by character too. The old games had quite a few autopause options for things like health threshholds and stuff, so it seems like something they should include.

 

They mentioned that you would be able to queue up actions I know. I hope they don't use that as an excuse to get rid of autopausing.

[andreisiadi]

The moderator closed my thread and told me to post in a thread with a loaded question for a title. So here it is.

 

Why cooldowns ?

 

I've read your statements. I've heard your answers. They mean nothing. You're avoiding the truth with vague arguments that mean nothing.

 

SO WHY ? I WANT TO KNOW WHY.

 

You said you want to make a classic game. We want to play a classic game. So why give us Dragon Age Reloaded ? Be honest, forget the market speech and just tell us why.

 

If you said you wanted to make a Dragon Age clone, then no publisher would have turned you down. So why come to us ? Perhaps you are tired of getting screwed over royalties by publishers and you want your own Dragon Age Ip so only you get the royalties. In other words, it was never about reviving the classic games or passion or whatever marketing lies you threw at us. It was always about the money.

 

Thanks a lot Obsidian !

[Ieo]

In addition to the cooldown problem I'm also concerned about the lack of rounds. This seems to push RTwP more towards true RT, but it also seems to make it less likely that an auto-pause feature will be implemented. Without autopause IE games would have lost a great deal of strategic feel. That feature was very important to my enjoyment of all of the IE games.

maybe I'm missing something, but how would this change the autopause feature at all?

 

Well how would they decide when to engage pause without a 6 second or some x second long round or turn? It seems like they'd almost have to invent something that works the same as a round or turn in order to automatically engage pause in a fair manner for both your party and the enemy. All of that was handled automatically in the IE games.

 

when one of your characters is ready for a new command, the game pauses.

 

Metiman, you need to read/listen to the Reddit Q&A:

 

What aspect of cRPGs missing from modern games do you most want to recapture with Project Eternity?

 

(Tim Cain) Answer: I can answer that in one word: parties. I like playing cRPG's that allow the player to control big parties of characters, and by control, I mean you can pick the actions of each party member if you want. We will have lots of pause conditions in our combat, and if you want to have the game pause whenever a party member can perform a new action, you can do that. Most modern games only let you control one character, or if they give you a party, you only control one member of that group. In this game, I want to control all of them.

[ogrezilla]

The moderator closed my thread and told me to post in a thread with a loaded question for a title. So here it is.

 

Why cooldowns ?

 

I've read your statements. I've heard your answers. They mean nothing. You're avoiding the truth with vague arguments that mean nothing.

 

SO WHY ? I WANT TO KNOW WHY.

 

You said you want to make a classic game. We want to play a classic game. So why give us Dragon Age Reloaded ? Be honest, forget the market speech and just tell us why.

 

If you said you wanted to make a Dragon Age clone, then no publisher would have turned you down. So why come to us ? Perhaps you are tired of getting screwed over royalties by publishers and you want your own Dragon Age Ip so only you get the royalties. In other words, it was never about reviving the classic games or passion or whatever marketing lies you threw at us. It was always about the money.

 

Thanks a lot Obsidian !

same answer I gave in the other thread.

 

cooldowns don't automatically mean dragon age. if you read the comments they made, you know they plan to make the combat mimic the general spirit of "# of casts per day" style mechanics using cooldowns in place of rest. They also value spell choice and preparation.

 

So why would they chose it? They can potentially create a system that feels like the classic system but without the rest system to screw with it. Thus, you may actually end up having to strategically choose spells AND think about when you use them. The old rest system completely negated that second part.

 

TLDR: They think they can do better

[J.E. Sawyer]

my expectations (largely speculation based on their comments) is that within the time of a single encounter, the system they create will play almost exactly like the old IE games. I think it will be the method of recovering your spells outside of combat that will differ.

Pretty much.

[ogrezilla]

I like that guy.

[TrashMan]

A CRPG without rest is not a true RPG. Period.