[Merged] Cooldown Thread

[MReed]

It depends. Do I have to wait 9 hours of real time to get the wish spells back?

He said rest is still included. I'm guessing it will be more limited than it used to be, but this is where that would be useful.

 

Then how does this system address the "problem" of rest-spamming?

[ogrezilla]

It depends. Do I have to wait 9 hours of real time to get the wish spells back?

He said rest is still included. I'm guessing it will be more limited than it used to be, but this is where that would be useful.

 

Then how does this system address the "problem" of rest-spamming?

by limiting either how often or where you can rest. The advantage is that your mage can still get some lower level and lower cooldown spells back in the meantime.

Edited October 2, 2012 by ogrezilla

[andreisiadi]

@andreisiadi: Why do you expect there to be a market speech? To be honest, when I joined I felt the community feeling almost directly.

 

Because they boasted about making a classic game, a spiritual successor to the infinity games. Now they tell me they have cooldowns that mimic that. That is market speech. Cooldowns is a MMO mechanic no matter how much Sawyer tweaks it. Perhaps he is too stubborn to admit it. There is no bridge between classic games and cooldowns no matter how you spin it and promise me it will be good. It just means every encounter you have all your abilities available to blast away. No resource management, no strategy. And market speech won't change that.

 

So wait, if I let you prepare 5 magic missile spells, and put each one on a half hour in game timer cooldown, and let you prepare 3 wish spells, and put each on a 9 hour ingame cooldown timer, that wouldn't be close enough to vancian?

it would actually be more in line with the intentions of vancian magic than any of the old IE games.

 

If anyone at Obsidian states that high level spells will not be available every encounter then you are correct and I am wrong. But for now all I see is them dodging the question. Let them state in an update that cooldowns will be so long that you will not have al spells/abilities available every encounter and all us haters will shut up forever.

[ogrezilla]

@andreisiadi: Why do you expect there to be a market speech? To be honest, when I joined I felt the community feeling almost directly.

 

Because they boasted about making a classic game, a spiritual successor to the infinity games. Now they tell me they have cooldowns that mimic that. That is market speech. Cooldowns is a MMO mechanic no matter how much Sawyer tweaks it. Perhaps he is too stubborn to admit it. There is no bridge between classic games and cooldowns no matter how you spin it and promise me it will be good. It just means every encounter you have all your abilities available to blast away. No resource management, no strategy. And market speech won't change that.

 

So wait, if I let you prepare 5 magic missile spells, and put each one on a half hour in game timer cooldown, and let you prepare 3 wish spells, and put each on a 9 hour ingame cooldown timer, that wouldn't be close enough to vancian?

it would actually be more in line with the intentions of vancian magic than any of the old IE games.

 

If anyone at Obsidian states that high level spells will not be available every encounter then you are correct and I am wrong. But for now all I see is them dodging the question. Let them state in an update that cooldowns will be so long that you will not have al spells/abilities available every encounter and all us haters will shut up forever.

the information we have has them saying the goal is to at least somewhat mimic the old mechanic of so many casts of certain spells per day. That to me is enough to make me optimistic I guess. I assume the best until I have a reason to believe otherwise. You assume the worst until you have a reason to believe otherwise. We are both just speculating. At least you are being reasonable about it.

Edited October 2, 2012 by ogrezilla

[metiman]

Well the where of resting is limited in the old systems as well. As to how often, every 16 hours would seem to make sense, but if there is no wait() function that would mean continuing to play the game until the full 16 hours of wake time has elapsed. But then they would have to avoid a fast travel function as well, because you could just travel back and forth until the 16 hours had elapsed. Lots of speculation. We actually know very little. Personally I would like to see a 16 hour waking period actually enforced mage or no mage. An adventuring party isn't going to function very well without sleep.

[MReed]

It depends. Do I have to wait 9 hours of real time to get the wish spells back?

He said rest is still included. I'm guessing it will be more limited than it used to be, but this is where that would be useful.

 

Then how does this system address the "problem" of rest-spamming?

by limiting either how often or where you can rest. The advantage is that your mage can still get some lower level and lower cooldown spells back in the meantime.

 

Then I'm cool with that, although I'd argue that such a system is a more accurately described as a "variant of Vancian system" than a "cooldown system". The only benefit I can see to such a system is to increase the power of players that refuse (for RP reasons, or whatever) to rest-spam to be closer to the power of parties that do rest-spam. I guess that makes it a bit easier to balance the game...

 

Note: No system of restricting rest will be even slightly effective against a dedicated rest spammer. You can always retreat all the way to the last inn, if no other options are available, after all.

[qstoffe]

nothing they have said makes me think you will be getting your powerful spells every fight. If anything, that seems like the kind of thing they are actively trying to avoid by removing rest spamming.

 

I think you misunderstood me. The point I made was that cooldown systems usually have LESS powerful spells just because you can cast them so often. I want spells to be MORE powerful and limited.

Edited October 2, 2012 by qstoffe

[metiman]

But people have raised the idea of a only-sleep-when-actually-tired function which certainly doesn't seem unreasonable or unrealistic. So you have to find a way to wait for up to 16 hours before going to that inn.

[Gfted1]

I just hope the game utilizes a checkpoint save mechanic. Its stupid to let people save wherever they want.

I don't see it as stupid, there were lots of moments, at least in the BG games, where randomness could dominate an encounter instead of the tactics. Nobody likes losing a group wizard to permadeath because the invisibility potion popping rogues decided to team up on him in the second round. And it doesn't seem a good thing to ask the player to jump back half an hour because of it. Or ask him to just deal.

 

If they do try to eliminate swing, I expect lots of calls against "streamlining."

 

I was being sarcastic (which I know is hard to detect in text). I think checkpooint saves are as stupid as limiting when a person can regerate abilities, in single player games.

[ogrezilla]

It depends. Do I have to wait 9 hours of real time to get the wish spells back?

He said rest is still included. I'm guessing it will be more limited than it used to be, but this is where that would be useful.

 

Then how does this system address the "problem" of rest-spamming?

by limiting either how often or where you can rest. The advantage is that your mage can still get some lower level and lower cooldown spells back in the meantime.

 

Then I'm cool with that, although I'd argue that such a system is a more accurately described as a "variant of Vancian system" than a "cooldown system". The only benefit I can see to such a system is to increase the power of players that refuse (for RP reasons, or whatever) to rest-spam to be closer to the power of parties that do rest-spam. I guess that makes it a bit easier to balance the game...

 

Note: No system of restricting rest will be even slightly effective against a dedicated rest spammer. You can always retreat all the way to the last inn, if no other options are available, after all.

you are absolutely right. Like I've said, I am definitely speculating at this point. I personally think if someone is that set on rest spamming, good for them. But it would take the temptation of dong it after every fight away.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Here is something I would like to hear opinions on. Take the following circumstance, which is not uncommon in the IE games and would be somewhat similar to the KotC "campsite" system in circumstances were you are not locked off from backtracking to a campsite.

 

* You are in a location where resting is either prohibited or extraordinarily likely to result in an encounter. You do not know the location of the next campsite/safe resting area.

* You have cast many of your spells and the ones that remain are not entirely appropriate for the encounters you are now facing.

* Because you came from an area where you could rest and are not locked in the location, you have a cleared (by you) path back to the area where you can safely rest.

* It will take you three minutes of real time to walk back to the camp, maybe thirty seconds to reconfigure spells, five seconds to rest, and another three minutes of real time to walk back to where you had left off.

* Because you killed everything between you and the campsite, there are no threats between you and the campsite.

 

In this circumstance, what is good about the experience of walking back to the campsite?

[ogrezilla]

nothing they have said makes me think you will be getting your powerful spells every fight. If anything, that seems like the kind of thing they are actively trying to avoid by removing rest spamming.

 

I think you misunderstood me. The point I made was that cooldown systems usually have LESS powerful spells just because you can cast them so often. I want spells to be MORE powerful and limited.

 

I still don't see why that has to be true if the cooldowns are long enough. You are right, that is how it happens when two minutes is considered a long cooldown. I'm picturing half an hour game time being short cooldowns. I have no proof that I am even close to right with that assumption.

[ogrezilla]

Here is something I would like to hear opinions on. Take the following circumstance, which is not uncommon in the IE games and would be somewhat similar to the KotC "campsite" system in circumstances were you are not locked off from backtracking to a campsite.

 

* You are in a location where resting is either prohibited or extraordinarily likely to result in an encounter. You do not know the location of the next campsite/safe resting area.

* You have cast many of your spells and the ones that remain are not entirely appropriate for the encounters you are now facing.

* Because you came from an area where you could rest and are not locked in the location, you have a cleared (by you) path back to the area where you can safely rest.

* It will take you three minutes of real time to walk back to the camp, maybe thirty seconds to reconfigure spells, five seconds to rest, and another three minutes of real time to walk back to where you had left off.

* Because you killed everything between you and the campsite, there are no threats between you and the campsite.

 

In this circumstance, what is good about the experience of walking back to the campsite?

 

absolutely nothing. in my opinion. walking for the sake of walking is something I would love to live without.

[Osvir]

@andreisiadi: Why do you expect there to be a market speech? To be honest, when I joined I felt the community feeling almost directly.

 

Because they boasted about making a classic game, a spiritual successor to the infinity games. Now they tell me they have cooldowns that mimic that. That is market speech. Cooldowns is a MMO mechanic no matter how much Sawyer tweaks it. Perhaps he is too stubborn to admit it. There is no bridge between classic games and cooldowns no matter how you spin it and promise me it will be good. It just means every encounter you have all your abilities available to blast away. No resource management, no strategy. And market speech won't change that.

 

Okay so that doesn't answer anything.

 

I'll ask you the same question I asked mindx2. What would you like to see in a cooldown system, so that it would be enjoyable by you as well as others?

 

Have you ever drawn a painting? Well, start doing it. That's what I think Obsidian is interested in, not your opinion on how you do not like what they are suggesting. Then this project will never be finished or even started. Let me paint you a scenario by words:

 

Obsidian: "Hey guys we want to do this"

SupporterA: "No!"

Obsidian: "Okay, well do you have something better?"

SupperterA: "No!"

Obsidian: "Think we can improve on it, maybe?"

SupporterA: "NO!"

 

Is this helpful information or material that can be used except for anything?

SupporterA: "No!"

 

Obsidian: "We want to do this"

SupporterB: "Okay cool, we can do like this this this that that and this this or merge it like this with a twist of some of this"

Obsidian: *listening* "We like this, this and this" <- response almost always cryptic/subtle (there is importance in secrecy too)

SupporterB: "Next!"

Obsidian: "Okay we want this"

SupporterB: "Ah! Wow! Yeah let's do it, maybe like this this this this this that merge up down twist this with that and his goes there... etc. etc."

Obsidian: *listening* "We like this, this and this" <- response almost always cryptic/subtle (there is importance in secrecy too)

 

Which do you want to be, SupporterA or SupporterB?

[Hypevosa]

Here is something I would like to hear opinions on. Take the following circumstance, which is not uncommon in the IE games and would be somewhat similar to the KotC "campsite" system in circumstances were you are not locked off from backtracking to a campsite.

 

* You are in a location where resting is either prohibited or extraordinarily likely to result in an encounter. You do not know the location of the next campsite/safe resting area.

* You have cast many of your spells and the ones that remain are not entirely appropriate for the encounters you are now facing.

* Because you came from an area where you could rest and are not locked in the location, you have a cleared (by you) path back to the area where you can safely rest.

* It will take you three minutes of real time to walk back to the camp, maybe thirty seconds to reconfigure spells, five seconds to rest, and another three minutes of real time to walk back to where you had left off.

* Because you killed everything between you and the campsite, there are no threats between you and the campsite.

 

In this circumstance, what is good about the experience of walking back to the campsite?

 

Bingo. Unless the game has enemies that will patrol and suddenly block the path to your camp, or will be there in the morning when you head back so you aren't getting back to that spot un-harassed, then forcing people to waste time walking back and forth is unnecessary.

[MReed]

But people have raised the idea of a only-sleep-when-actually-tired function which certainly doesn't seem unreasonable or unrealistic. So you have to find a way to wait for up to 16 hours before going to that inn.

 

Yeap, that's my concern. There hasn't been a developer post stating that "A mechanic will be available that immediately resets all the cooldowns" (whether that is "wait()" or "rest()" or something altogether different). Until I see such a post, I think it is far more likely that the intent of this feature is exactly what it seems like: to prevent players from rest spamming. The best way to do this is to make cooldown timers that only respond to the passage of real-time. This is 100% reliable at solving the "problem", after all.

 

Of course, this leads to a much more serious problem, of people leaving the game running overnight (or during dinner, or while they are at work) to reset cooldowns, but hey -- surely the developers aren't that silly, are they?

[Jandor]

Here is something I would like to hear opinions on. Take the following circumstance, which is not uncommon in the IE games and would be somewhat similar to the KotC "campsite" system in circumstances were you are not locked off from backtracking to a campsite.

 

* You are in a location where resting is either prohibited or extraordinarily likely to result in an encounter. You do not know the location of the next campsite/safe resting area.

* You have cast many of your spells and the ones that remain are not entirely appropriate for the encounters you are now facing.

* Because you came from an area where you could rest and are not locked in the location, you have a cleared (by you) path back to the area where you can safely rest.

* It will take you three minutes of real time to walk back to the camp, maybe thirty seconds to reconfigure spells, five seconds to rest, and another three minutes of real time to walk back to where you had left off.

* Because you killed everything between you and the campsite, there are no threats between you and the campsite.

 

In this circumstance, what is good about the experience of walking back to the campsite?

 

Nothing. Whew, I'm glad you guys are making Project: Eternity and not some of the guys on here.

 

 

 

Edit: Hasn't it been stated that while they haven't ruled out cooldowns they are also aren't going to do it the same as everyone else does them? Hell, just sticking the cooldown at the start of the spell (as if it was a casting time) is basically the same mechanic but straight away changes things a lot.

I don't know if it comes across, I'm a big fan of sticking the "cool down" at the start, it has the same function of being much easier to balance like traditional cooldowns but makes thematic sense and creates a tactical side as you have to protect the caster until they can get the spell ready. With the bonus that you don't end up potentially stuck with a bunch of useless spells.

 

Combine it with Trashmans fatigue idea in the thread he created that casting spells lowers your max fatigue (or mana) but it regenerates within the limit left and the limit resets upon rest and you surely have a system that most people, with a bit of tweaking obviously, can be happy with?

 

Edit 2: Trashmans thread: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60903-allernatives-to-vanacian-or-cooldowns-other-suggestions/

Edited October 2, 2012 by Jandor

[Amentep]

Here is something I would like to hear opinions on. Take the following circumstance, which is not uncommon in the IE games and would be somewhat similar to the KotC "campsite" system in circumstances were you are not locked off from backtracking to a campsite.

 

* You are in a location where resting is either prohibited or extraordinarily likely to result in an encounter. You do not know the location of the next campsite/safe resting area.

* You have cast many of your spells and the ones that remain are not entirely appropriate for the encounters you are now facing.

* Because you came from an area where you could rest and are not locked in the location, you have a cleared (by you) path back to the area where you can safely rest.

* It will take you three minutes of real time to walk back to the camp, maybe thirty seconds to reconfigure spells, five seconds to rest, and another three minutes of real time to walk back to where you had left off.

* Because you killed everything between you and the campsite, there are no threats between you and the campsite.

 

In this circumstance, what is good about the experience of walking back to the campsite?

 

Are their flowers that we can smell on the way to the campsite? Can we stop to smell the flowers?

 

While I don't think I'd be terribly put out by this every now and then (30th time in a row I'd hate) there's no benefit to the walk that I can see.

 

But people have raised the idea of a only-sleep-when-actually-tired function which certainly doesn't seem unreasonable or unrealistic. So you have to find a way to wait for up to 16 hours before going to that inn.

 

Yeap, that's my concern. There hasn't been a developer post stating that "A mechanic will be available that immediately resets all the cooldowns" (whether that is "wait()" or "rest()" or something altogether different). Until I see such a post, I think it is far more likely that the intent of this feature is exactly what it seems like: to prevent players from rest spamming. The best way to do this is to make cooldown timers that only respond to the passage of real-time. This is 100% reliable at solving the "problem", after all.

 

Of course, this leads to a much more serious problem, of people leaving the game running overnight (or during dinner, or while they are at work) to reset cooldowns, but hey -- surely the developers aren't that silly, are they?

 

I'm not entirely sure that Obsidian's path to eliminate in-game rest spamming by the characters is to encourage outside-of-game rest spamming by the player. I think the goal of eliminating rest spamming would be to create a system in which the players would feel no need to rest after every encounter?

Edited October 2, 2012 by Amentep

[MReed]

Here is something I would like to hear opinions on. Take the following circumstance, which is not uncommon in the IE games and would be somewhat similar to the KotC "campsite" system in circumstances were you are not locked off from backtracking to a campsite.

 

* You are in a location where resting is either prohibited or extraordinarily likely to result in an encounter. You do not know the location of the next campsite/safe resting area.

* You have cast many of your spells and the ones that remain are not entirely appropriate for the encounters you are now facing.

* Because you came from an area where you could rest and are not locked in the location, you have a cleared (by you) path back to the area where you can safely rest.

* It will take you three minutes of real time to walk back to the camp, maybe thirty seconds to reconfigure spells, five seconds to rest, and another three minutes of real time to walk back to where you had left off.

* Because you killed everything between you and the campsite, there are no threats between you and the campsite.

 

In this circumstance, what is good about the experience of walking back to the campsite?

 

Bingo. Unless the game has enemies that will patrol and suddenly block the path to your camp, or will be there in the morning when you head back so you aren't getting back to that spot un-harassed, then forcing people to waste time walking back and forth is unnecessary.

 

100% agreed -- it is a total waste of time to make the player walk back to the camp. Thus, the reason that most games either include a resting mechanic that can be used almost anywhere that resets spells / abilities at minimal or no cost or simply assumes that the player will rest after every encounter and resets all spells / abilities automatically.

 

I'm convinced, where do I sign up?

[ogrezilla]

But people have raised the idea of a only-sleep-when-actually-tired function which certainly doesn't seem unreasonable or unrealistic. So you have to find a way to wait for up to 16 hours before going to that inn.

 

Yeap, that's my concern. There hasn't been a developer post stating that "A mechanic will be available that immediately resets all the cooldowns" (whether that is "wait()" or "rest()" or something altogether different). Until I see such a post, I think it is far more likely that the intent of this feature is exactly what it seems like: to prevent players from rest spamming. The best way to do this is to make cooldown timers that only respond to the passage of real-time. This is 100% reliable at solving the "problem", after all.

 

Of course, this leads to a much more serious problem, of people leaving the game running overnight (or during dinner, or while they are at work) to reset cooldowns, but hey -- surely the developers aren't that silly, are they?

 

I'm not entirely sure that Obsidian's path to eliminate in-game rest spamming by the characters is to encourage outside-of-game rest spamming by the player. I think the goal of eliminating rest spamming would be to create a system in which the players would feel no need to rest after every encounter?

 

agreed. But a lot of people on this board seem to believe that convenience is bad game design even if it doesn't actually make the game easier, all it does is avoid wasting time doing things like walking back and forth. Though so far the responses to Sawyer disagree with that generality and agree with me.

[JWestfall]

Here is something I would like to hear opinions on. Take the following circumstance, which is not uncommon in the IE games and would be somewhat similar to the KotC "campsite" system in circumstances were you are not locked off from backtracking to a campsite.

 

* You are in a location where resting is either prohibited or extraordinarily likely to result in an encounter. You do not know the location of the next campsite/safe resting area.

* You have cast many of your spells and the ones that remain are not entirely appropriate for the encounters you are now facing.

* Because you came from an area where you could rest and are not locked in the location, you have a cleared (by you) path back to the area where you can safely rest.

* It will take you three minutes of real time to walk back to the camp, maybe thirty seconds to reconfigure spells, five seconds to rest, and another three minutes of real time to walk back to where you had left off.

* Because you killed everything between you and the campsite, there are no threats between you and the campsite.

 

In this circumstance, what is good about the experience of walking back to the campsite?

 

I'll try to play devil's advocate here (since I don't really care strongly either way, as long as the end product is fun when combined with the rest of the system), and give 2 reason:

 

1 - because it is anti-MMO, and MMO == bad.

2 - more seriously, it rewards careful play and planning, and time can be viewed as just another form of resource management. This is akin to having inventory or weight limits, and the choice of balancing walking back to shop, dropping possibly valuable items, and player time.

[aVENGER]

In this circumstance, what is good about the experience of walking back to the campsite?

 

Fast Travel FTW? :D Now on a serious note, you have a good point, backtracking is rarely ever fun. However, I'm thinking that there are other ways around this particular issue besides cooldowns.

 

One possible solution would be to design areas in such a way that clearing them out doesn't require a huge amount of backtracking. Another would be to use a mana system designed with limitations in place that would prevent/discourage potion chugging but still allow the player to (partially) replenish his mana pool in a pinch. For example, introduce some kind of cumulative penalties for (over)using mana potions i.e. mental fatigue which results in less potent spellcasting or something like that.

[metiman]

Here is something I would like to hear opinions on. Take the following circumstance, which is not uncommon in the IE games and would be somewhat similar to the KotC "campsite" system in circumstances were you are not locked off from backtracking to a campsite.

 

* You are in a location where resting is either prohibited or extraordinarily likely to result in an encounter. You do not know the location of the next campsite/safe resting area.

* You have cast many of your spells and the ones that remain are not entirely appropriate for the encounters you are now facing.

* Because you came from an area where you could rest and are not locked in the location, you have a cleared (by you) path back to the area where you can safely rest.

* It will take you three minutes of real time to walk back to the camp, maybe thirty seconds to reconfigure spells, five seconds to rest, and another three minutes of real time to walk back to where you had left off.

* Because you killed everything between you and the campsite, there are no threats between you and the campsite.

 

In this circumstance, what is good about the experience of walking back to the campsite?

 

Nothing is good about the experience of the walking itself. I will admit that just waiting the equivalent amount of time for a cooldown period is less unpleasant. You can go do something for a few minutes and come back. But the walking has the advantage of a better conceptual framework. You understand why it is "necessary". You can't go to sleep right near where monsters would be. With an equivalent cooldown I guess you could show an equivalent animation of you going to the campsite, sleeping, etc. I suppose it would also mean that code may not have to be written for all of those extra functions saving programming time for other things.

[Shadenuat]

In this circumstance, what is good about the experience of walking back to the campsite?

There's a catch is't it.

Umm... uhhh... uhuhnum... omniomniomni... uh

 

...god I hate puzzles.

[Hypevosa]

Actually, if it's at all like the I.E. games, we could have a rest button where hitting it fast fowards through your party heading back to a camp, resting, and fastforwards you back to your original location, only putting you back in the game if you hit an encounter?

 

I've no idea how the game will work though - if there are monsters that will feasibly, randomly roam inbetween you and your camp, or if everything in the world stands still until you go yell at it.