[Merged] Cooldown Thread

[Jasede]

JESawyer's post implies cooldowns will be on the order of 5 minutes long.

No it doesn't. Nothing about it implies that.

 

The obvious answer is nothing - but the question is loaded.

We are talking about the Infinity Engine games and the experience that they created. Do you believe my representation of how players actually played the game is inaccurate?

 

Am I wrong? Did people look at Dragon's Eye in IWD and guess, "You know, I bet there's... five levels to this place... lizard men with shamans, armored skeletons, blast skeletons, some cold wights, ghouls, a cleric of Talona, disguised yuani-ti casters, a mix of yuan-ti fighters and casters and... I've got a feeling there's a marilith at the bottom." and then do a point-to-point march through the dungeon, not only selecting, but conserving their spells perfectly so they never had to backtrack out?

 

I feel like I'm describing what is a very common circumstance in the Infinity Engine games. People pay attention, make educated guesses, but ultimately are unable to know the full extent of the challenges they are dealing with. The only way they would be able to do so is through extraordinary prescience.

 

That's all well and good but since it's a video-game there's really no harm in making the player game over (because of the spell selection) and having him try again from the beginning, armed with the knowledge of what's ahead. It seems you'd prefer the player can keep going even if he happened to select the wrong spells at the time. Minimize downtime, that sort of thing. Similar reasoning for why in so many modern games your party members don't die, they just go unconscious (to save you time reviving them). I can't get behind that sort of thing. It rewards sloppy play. It's just not my idea of a good game, to not be punished for a mistake. I can't have satisfaction if the path to it wasn't filled with spikes and hot coals.

 

But I can already tell you'd rather more people enjoy this game than less. I mean, that's just good business sense. But please give us a lot of restrictions in Hardcore mode at the very least. We never get RPGs like they used to be anymore. Here's your chance to make a tiny, but loyal (and notoriously grumpy and loud) part of your fanbase really happy, for what that's worth.

[qstoffe]

A serious point: until you actually see the magic system and spells within it, how can you honestly pre-judge cool-downs?

 

Agreed but I'm simply worried because so far I haven't seen ANY game with cooldown mechanics that wasn't a lot worse than the old resting system was. I'm all for alternatives like fatigue though.

[alanschu]

Listen, if us "munchkins" hadn't been out in force here today with our complaints, Josh probably would not have stepped into the forum to clarify his position with regards to level scaling. And who knows? It could be that thanks to that, even the slightest possibility of level scaling in this game has now been eliminated.

 

Don't belittle the munchkins. We get things done.

 

Did the munchkins mind the level scaling in BG2?

[Jandor]

Super hardcore dudes want super hardcore game, thats why Obsidian announced super hardcore mode.

 

Now stop trying to ruin the normal game for those of us who aren't super hardcore.

 

How about you get "super easy mode" instead, and the core game caters to us hardcore dudes. I like that option better.

 

Because ultra hardcore mode has already been announced, obviously.

 

But you know what, I don't care what it's called so long as I have fun, I'm not interested in being the baddest mofo on the Obsidian forums.

[Hypevosa]

0.02$: ...skills like Tracking, Monster Lore and Dungeoneering.

Do you think you should be able to get the full spread on not only the occupants of Dragon's Eye on each level but also their tactics and spell selection prior to entry?

 

Even in tabletop games where my characters were loaded to the gills with divination magic I couldn't get that much detail. I.e. actual in-game metagaming could not fully prepare us for encounters.

 

Unless we have a sort of spell that detects and allows you to read spell books on the local map...

 

If casting has something to do with your soul, would seeing peoples' auras give you hints as to the type of spells they likely have prepared?

[ogrezilla]

@J.E. Sawyer

 

Is it safe to assume that harsher punishment like requiring you to simply restart the cave from the last safe camp is out of the question? obviously you wouldn't be forced to. You'd have the option of attempting to push on. But assuming you legitimately can't win under the current circumstances.

Edited October 2, 2012 by ogrezilla

[zlarm]

Weren't BG spells essentially on a 6 second cool down timer (given that BG is on a 6sec/round system)?

Edited October 2, 2012 by zlarm

[NoxNoctum]

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 don't find nothing much interesting in simply going back to camp, it is true. But what I would find interesting, and I still have a little hope might see its way into this game, at least in some form, is that, now, a whole day has passed. This can mean a lot of things! Examples could include:

• 1d4 of the kidnapped villagers you are trying to rescue die of exhaustion at the feet of the orcs who plan to sell the toughest ones as slaves.
  
• The three escaping goblins flee to the underground, retell about your party's attack, and this results in a new, tougher patrol in the upper floor and making it impossible to get the orcs by surprise now.
  
• The warlock in the underground finishes a serum that more than doubles the strength of a goblinoid who drinks it, but turns him into an homicidal maniac (well, even more than they normally are). From now on, a couple of this enemy type will appear in random fights.
  
• The sleeping dragon in the bottom of the cave stirs and detect your presence. Fortunately, he goes almost right back to sleep, but not before taking one of the most comely villagers as a tribute from the orcs.
  
• Another group of adventurers goes through the cave, picking up some of the magic items for themselves and taking a few of the monsters and traps down.
  
• A traveling group of performers comes to the inn. Their play, should the party watch it, contains subtle clues about the dungeon and its politics.
  
• The orc warchief might decide to move out and go back to the great underground. If the PCs can't save the villagers before they reach that, the quest is failed. Then again, maybe some of the villagers might appear later in the game as slaves to the monstrosities the orcs sold them to.
  
• The orcs could find the wooden cart full of booze the PCs left nearby. If they come back at night, the orcs will be drunk and partying. If they come back during the morning, patrols will be weakened and with a headache.
  

Basically, there is room here to put lots of interesting consequences. Which is why I like the basics of the vancian system so much.

Wow what a great post. THAT is the kind of solution to resting abuse I'd like to see, rather than cooldowns

Edited October 2, 2012 by NoxNoctum

[metiman]

Weren't BG spells essentially on a 6 second cool down timer (given that BG is on a 6sec/round system)?

 

Only if spells can be cast instantly. What's your point?

[WayneWetski]

Listen, if us "munchkins" hadn't been out in force here today with our complaints, Josh probably would not have stepped into the forum to clarify his position with regards to level scaling. And who knows? It could be that thanks to that, even the slightest possibility of level scaling in this game has now been eliminated.

 

Don't belittle the munchkins. We get things done.

 

Did the munchkins mind the level scaling in BG2?

 

There's not a lot of encounter scaling in BG2

[D3xter]

Let's just say that I haven't seen a single example in which cooldowns ended up working well, imo it is also one of the largest banes of the MMO genre (in that combat degrades in pushing 1-2-3 etc. and it is very saddening that it's floating over into SRPGs) that they can't seem to finally drop that crap system. I was actually more fine with Ultima Onlines reagent-based system than any cooldown-based one I've seen or experienced so far...

 

If I remember right Dungeons & Dragons Online had an interesting system with campsites/rest places sparingly distributed inside dungeons. There was no HP or spell regen before you hit those places, and you had to get through quite a lot of enemies and fights before you got to one (or they were placed right before/behind a boss encounter). I think you could only use each of them once so there was a certain tactic involved in when you wanted to rest up. If you dropped too low in HP and couldn't get through to the next resting spot, you pretty much wiped and had to try again (e.g. having to go back to town and reprepare). I dunno how this might work in a non-MMO/SRPG setting with a saving system, it was kinda similar to the Bonfires in Dark Souls, except you could only use each of them once and the enemies didn't respawn.

 

I just know that cooldown-spamming and not having to make tactical choices is NOT what I'm looking for in a good combat/spell system.

 

As has been said before, a simple "tracking skill" that might improve/get more precise the higher level it is might give people ample opportunity to prepare for specific encounters. e.g. imagine Heroes of Might & Magic or King's Bounty like "army size" estimation and what "types" of enemies could be encountered (in lore it could be like tracking foot steps, smells or just noticing peculiar things about locations). Another way is just doing it through the story itself e.g. in dialogue with NPCs "I've heard tales of beholders down that god-forsaken hole!", "We sighted orcs in the area south of town." etc.

Edited October 2, 2012 by D3xter

[metiman]

In designing any cooldown system I think that's a very important question to answer. What am I doing differently such that I can succeed where every previous attempt by other developers has failed?

[J.E. Sawyer]

That's all well and good but since it's a video-game there's really no harm in making the player game over (because of the spell selection) and having him try again from the beginning, armed with the knowledge of what's ahead. It seems you'd prefer the player can keep going even if he happened to select the wrong spells at the time.

No. The punishment is that they do poorly in combat. Assuming they survive the combat and have learned that they used poor tactics (or strategy), why does the player need to be punished again? This is pretty much the sequence of how this goes down from a player's perspective:

 

* Player selects a number of spells for any number of reasons, thoughtful or thoughtless.

* Player enters combat with enemies that are poorly matched to his or her spells.

* The player realizes that a different group of spells would be better for these monsters.

* The fight is rough, but the player survives.

* The player decides to switch his or her spells to something more appropriate.

 

If the fight is hard, they already suffered for the choices they made. When the fight is over and the player has made a decision to switch spells, why should he or she be punished again?

[Stun]

Sure it does. The learning is in the action -> consequence. Used up your arsenal too fast? Then you're going to have to take some time and walk back to camp. What is learned: Be more economical with your arsenal next time, or else you'll need to walk back...again.

 

Or you learn that's acceptable behavior and just keep doing it since it's easy. The problem is there is no challenge here, so anyone can do it, it's JUST a waste of time.

 

reward players for being good, they will strive to be better to get those rewards. "Punishing" bad players with tedium will just waste their time, they'll still be bad players.

Ok, lets pause for a moment to make a couple of things clear. First, A consequence does not have to be "hard" to successfully deter the player and make him re-think his strategies. It mearly has to be unpleasant enough to make the player not wish to do it anymore. (which is what back tracking in a dungeon does. I hated, absolutely HATED having to walk back to the surface for any reason, when I was in level 2 or 3 in Dragon's eye in IWD. Therefore, I learned, real qucik, to do whatever it takes so I wouldn't have to trek back)

 

Second, what is with you guys and your erroneous belief that Old-school = Hard? The IE games weren't hard. They were easy. But what made them so great was that they still maintained their complexity, despite being easy.

 

Are not hard compared to what? Firkraag isn't hard? Even with SCS or improved anvil installed? Kangaxx isn't hard?

Compared to Witcher 2. compared to Demon Souls, And yes, compared to Dragon age Origins. In Baldur's gate 1, the game was essentially Over once you learned Haste. In TOEE the game was essentially Over, once you learned Fireball.

 

And Baldur's gate 2? Don't get me started on BG2. If you Solo'd a Kensai-Thief in BG2, All game challenge ceased by chapter 4, when you could use any item; when your traps killed every opponent; when you could stealth/invisible your way past every encounter. When the Shield of Balduran made you IMMUNE to Beholders, and the Amulet of power made you immune to Vampires, and Protection from magic scrolls made you immune to mages. When even Kangaxx was harmless if you simply ran to the nearest shop and bought a protection from Undead scroll and a +5 weapon.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Stun

[Osvir]

Even in tabletop games where my characters were loaded to the gills with divination magic I couldn't get that much detail. I.e. actual in-game metagaming could not fully prepare us for encounters.

 

This is truth, I have never entered a Dungeon in old IE games without adjusting my tactic, resting. Leaving the dungeon so that I can return to town and buy that sword, sell stuff and so forth. Many many times. And I personally don't enjoy it anymore.

 

I want to be immersed by the feeling of entering a Dungeon, realistic fantasy pfft, and clear it in one go. I want it to be a difficult challenge and I want my party to be on their knees, low on health, sweating as they finish it. One might be a goner and needs to be Resurrected at the Temple. I want in-game elements that enhance my imagination and pretending, wherein "We need to leave this Dungeon midway through it because our Mage is being cranky. We are all fit and strong, Cleric still has a few heal spells, we are high on health and we've got a lot of space in our inventories. Time for loot'n!". Instead the Mage wears down the entire party and I -have to- return to the camp site if I want to use him. I can go on without him... ooooh!

 

How about sending a character off to the camp site, on his own?

Edited October 2, 2012 by Osvir

[andreisiadi]

In designing any cooldown system I think that's a very important question to answer. What am I doing differently such that I can succeed where every previous attempt by other developers has failed?

 

But if everyone else has failed, what are my chances at succeeding. Am I really that good? Do I have an excellent track-record in the field ? Maybe I should come up with something original and avoid this mess in the first place...

[Infinitron]

That's all well and good but since it's a video-game there's really no harm in making the player game over (because of the spell selection) and having him try again from the beginning, armed with the knowledge of what's ahead. It seems you'd prefer the player can keep going even if he happened to select the wrong spells at the time.

No. The punishment is that they do poorly in combat. Assuming they survive the combat and have learned that they used poor tactics (or strategy), why does the player need to be punished again? This is pretty much the sequence of how this goes down from a player's perspective:

 

* Player selects a number of spells for any number of reasons, thoughtful or thoughtless.

* Player enters combat with enemies that are poorly matched to his or her spells.

* The player realizes that a different group of spells would be better for these monsters.

* The fight is rough, but the player survives.

* The player decides to switch his or her spells to something more appropriate.

 

If the fight is hard, they already suffered for the choices they made. When the fight is over and the player has made a decision to switch spells, why should he or she be punished again?

 

Josh, I think that the more common case isn't the player doing poorly in combat due to a bad selection of spells, but rather running out of spells, period.

 

You might play wastefully and run out of spells even if you chose them wisely and kicked ass at combat while you still had them.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Infinitron

[J.E. Sawyer]

Wow what a great post. THAT is the kind of solution to resting abuse I'd like to see, rather than cooldowns

Those are all great ideas for addressing backtracking and resting in a tabletop game. I have used many similar approaches in my own tabletop games. But this is not a tabletop game. It's a computer game that runs primarily through systems. We script a large amount of custom content, but scripting every location to react to the player retreating and resting would be like designing and scripting every area 1.5 times.

[Lv99Wizard]

To me it implied cooldown length was on that order because that is the alternative you're providing to backtracking 3 minutes, resting, fixing your spells and then walking back another 3 minutes (~6 minutes in total). I guess I misunderstood.

 

 

JESawyer's post implies cooldowns will be on the order of 5 minutes long.

No it doesn't. Nothing about it implies that.

 

The obvious answer is nothing - but the question is loaded.

We are talking about the Infinity Engine games and the experience that they created. Do you believe my representation of how players actually played the game is inaccurate?

 

Am I wrong? Did people look at Dragon's Eye in IWD and guess, "You know, I bet there's... five levels to this place... lizard men with shamans, armored skeletons, blast skeletons, some cold wights, ghouls, a cleric of Talona, disguised yuani-ti casters, a mix of yuan-ti fighters and casters and... I've got a feeling there's a marilith at the bottom." and then do a point-to-point march through the dungeon, not only selecting, but conserving their spells perfectly so they never had to backtrack out?

 

I feel like I'm describing what is a very common circumstance in the Infinity Engine games. People pay attention, make educated guesses, but ultimately are unable to know the full extent of the challenges they are dealing with. The only way they would be able to do so is through extraordinary prescience.

 

Well Dragon's Eye could not be completed on one set of spells but backtracking wasn't a problem. In my games, the various fighters/paladins could pull the party through any encounters until the mages got a chance to regain their spells. This also reinforces the need for a balanced party. I tried the same with an all-caster party and it went badly.

 

More generally, the Vancian system required players to understand the mechanics more keenly to progress through the game. It introduced risk and tension to the game which, for me, made the experience so much more intimate than other RPGs. I really felt connected to my characters because they were in peril and my decisions could worsen/improve their situation. I have no idea how you plan to implement the cooldown mechanics but my main worry is this atmosphere would be diminished or worse without a resting system.

 

In my experience, backtracking wasn't a problem big enough to warrant cooldown mechanics.

[GordonHalfman]

That's all well and good but since it's a video-game there's really no harm in making the player game over (because of the spell selection) and having him try again from the beginning, armed with the knowledge of what's ahead. It seems you'd prefer the player can keep going even if he happened to select the wrong spells at the time.

No. The punishment is that they do poorly in combat. Assuming they survive the combat and have learned that they used poor tactics (or strategy), why does the player need to be punished again? This is pretty much the sequence of how this goes down from a player's perspective:

 

* Player selects a number of spells for any number of reasons, thoughtful or thoughtless.

* Player enters combat with enemies that are poorly matched to his or her spells.

* The player realizes that a different group of spells would be better for these monsters.

* The fight is rough, but the player survives.

* The player decides to switch his or her spells to something more appropriate.

 

If the fight is hard, they already suffered for the choices they made. When the fight is over and the player has made a decision to switch spells, why should he or she be punished again?

 

Do you just disagree with the whole concept of managing resources across fights then? I'm curious as to what your stance is on healing potions.

[Captain Shrek]

Wow what a great post. THAT is the kind of solution to resting abuse I'd like to see, rather than cooldowns

Those are all great ideas for addressing backtracking and resting in a tabletop game. I have used many similar approaches in my own tabletop games. But this is not a tabletop game. It's a computer game that runs primarily through systems. We script a large amount of custom content, but scripting every location to react to the player retreating and resting would be like designing and scripting every area 1.5 times.

I like your argument about avoiding tedious rest sessions.

 

I think it can be improved even further! Just skip the entire cool down thing and just allow auto regenerate after the combat. I mean why waste time doing nothing, right? That is the path of least resistance.

 

Also a good idea to call the game Baldur's Age. Seems best fit to the model you have in mind.

[Shadenuat]

I.e. actual in-game metagaming could not fully prepare us for encounters.

Why does it have to? I usually give players hints depending on their skills and roleplaying performance: if they did prepare and won, they feel good and smart; if they did't and lost, they still feel good, because they understood why that was such and that they actually had choice in the matter. It is't fair to completely hold them in the dark, but it is't fair either to rip them off a surprise and mystery dungeon holds. It's also fun to watch them argue about should they backtrack "now" or not.

 

I also agree with "guns. we need lots of guns" feeling.

 

If the fight is hard, they already suffered for the choices they made. When the fight is over and the player has made a decision to switch spells, why should he or she be punished again?

When you put it like that, it's hard to disagree. However, if you rip players of long-term punishment for long-term decisions completely (like, how many supplies they took or something) I don't believe that would be a great design decision either.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Josh, I think that the more common case isn't the player doing poorly in combat due to a bad selection of spells, but rather running out of spells, period.

 

You might play wastefully and run out of spells even if you chose them wisely and kicked ass at combat while you still had them.

That is likely more common, but isn't being "wasteful" something that's only appreciated in retrospect? I.e. conservation strategy is only strategic if you have some sort of understanding of what you're going up against. In most cases, you don't know how many enemies you're going to fight, how deep the dungeon is, or what spells any given caster has at his or her disposal. Is it "wasteful" to cast fireball on 6 lizard men? Is it wasteful to cast it on 4 lizard men? What if one of them is a caster and he's casting hold person? What if there are only 30 lizard men on the level?

[metiman]

The danger is in choosing a model that oversimplifies actual combat situations and thus does not fully appreciate why the non-cooldown version is actually more fun to play in practice. What these sorts of theories really need is playtesting. And not by people who already prefer cooldowns to other mechanics.

[ImNotCreative]

I'm surprised that this forum is full of strategic masterminds that never lost a fight in IE games and nobody have mentioned that optimal strategy for IE games is to rest after every encounter. Time isn't resource in IE games thus there are no drawbacks of running back to camp but it makes your party considerably stronger. If you didn't run back because you found it tedious or because you role played it doesn't matter because those are self imposed constraints and not part of the game's rules ie you were playing suboptimally. The only way to nerf the "resting strategy" without changing magic system is to make time a valuable resource (quests have time limits for example) or to respawn enemies on rest. I don't really think that neither of those solutions are good so I don't see how could you nerf "resting strategy" without changing magic system. Let's face it, no matter how we liked IE games they had some broken mechanics and were best played with self imposed challenges which is a bad design IMO.