[Merged] Cooldown Thread

[evdk]

 

 

Do you have a better solution? Mana pools have the same problem. They don't last forever and then you need a way to regen them. Usually involvign sleep or waiting around for half a day. Cooldowns are not a solution for obvious reasons. So what system is better? One with no limits on casting spellsl at all? That might work if everyone in the game is a spell caster.

Using the SR system of Toughness checks and fatigue?

Edited October 2, 2012 by evdk

[Lohi]

So with a cool down, I have an infinite number of fireball spells.

Well with a system with regen or cooldowns you would also need to have spells that work well with that. Do not just take D&D and add cooldowns or it will be massively broken. Ie, no fireballs! Or if you do have fireballs then you need drawbacks for using it; everything turns to target the mage (ala MMOs), all the loot is burned to a crisp, high chance of other party members taking massive spash damage, etc.

 

The idea I like better is a slow power regen. You can use a lot of power for a large fireball, but then you must wait a long time for the power to regen before you can do that again. Or you use smaller fireballs (ie, magic missile) and use them more often. Player decides on how much to charge up the magic effect. Using the small spells should be not much different from using a weapon. (it would make sense, similar to Elder Scrolls, to have similar stamina systems for melee/ranged attacks too)

 

Even better, dont just have these massive nuking attacks but use more tactical magic instead. Traps, slows, miss-chances, confusion, etc. If it's a party game then let the party work together, instead of the mage or figther single-shotting an enemy they work together by the mage removing defenses before the fighter swings the sword.

[dlux]

I have to say that cooldowns are fine in my opinion. But maybe you could just limit the amount of spells that a mage can cast in combat? Something like charges?

[DocDoomII]

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.

No. I haven't though a tremendous amount about healing points, but that brings up an interesting parallel resource management behavior in RPGs. I've seen (and talked to) innumerable gamers who say they end games with inventories full of consumables: potions, wands, scrolls, etc. The most commonly cited reason they give is that they don't know when is/isn't a good time to use them. Also, because they often have no idea when they might get more, they don't want to run out. It's sort of the inverse problem of rest spamming.

 

I'm not sure if that's really a problem of players not knowing when to use potions, or if it's simply a manifestation of OCD-type hoarding behavior.

 

I've thought about this problem before and I think that, again, some kind of introductory tutorial section needs to teach players about potions, and crucially, condition them into using them regularly and not hoarding them.

Aside from the occasional healing potion or anti venom potion I usually sell every potion I find.

[Infinitron]

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.

No. I haven't though a tremendous amount about healing points, but that brings up an interesting parallel resource management behavior in RPGs. I've seen (and talked to) innumerable gamers who say they end games with inventories full of consumables: potions, wands, scrolls, etc. The most commonly cited reason they give is that they don't know when is/isn't a good time to use them. Also, because they often have no idea when they might get more, they don't want to run out. It's sort of the inverse problem of rest spamming.

 

I'm not sure if that's really a problem of players not knowing when to use potions, or if it's simply a manifestation of OCD-type hoarding behavior.

 

I've thought about this problem before and I think that, again, some kind of introductory tutorial section needs to teach players about potions, and crucially, condition them into using them regularly and not hoarding them.

Aside from the occasional healing potion or anti venom potion I usually sell every potion I find.

 

Selling, hoarding. Same thing. You hoard potions so you can sell them afterwards.

[zlarm]

 

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

 

True I don't really remember what the time difference is between casting one spell and then the next (but it was a noticeable amount of time unhasted)... My point simply was that cooldown systems come in many forms and that many of those who hate a cooldown system and would prefer a BG system should realize that the BG system was a form of cooldown (just not as noticeable).

[Lohi]

In the IE games, the only way to get the spells back is take the chance of sleeping in the dungeon and possibly get attacked.

And that was broken, in my opinion. Even if you dump mages you need healing.

[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.

 

 

...'cept that restin' after e'ery fight didna always work; got interrupted a fair bit...am not sayin' mechanics was perfect, but interruptin' rest works fine ta stop those that abuses it...an' really, only thing peoples is doin' abusin' the rest function be takin' the fun away from theysselves, an' if'n peoples is gonna powergame, theys gonna find a way ta do it...sad, but true...

 

 

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

 

You could always run to a safe place losing only time.

[metiman]

Do you have a better solution? Mana pools have the same problem. They don't last forever and then you need a way to regen them. Usually involvign sleep or waiting around for half a day. Cooldowns are not a solution for obvious reasons. So what system is better? One with no limits on casting spellsl at all? That might work if everyone in the game is a spell caster.

Using the SR system of Toughness checks and fatigue?

 

I like the fatigue mechanic but it is mostly just a variation on the mana mechanic. Eventually your fatigue pool drops. Could be just a few high level spells before it happens. Then you either suffer some kind of physical injury and then have to go rest to gain back your fatigue or you just have to go rest to gain back your fatigue. The refill mechanic is still there.

[evdk]

 

I'm not sure if that's really a problem of players "not knowing when to use potions", or if it's simply a manifestation of OCD hoarding behavior.

 

I've thought about this problem before myself and I think that, again, there needs to be some kind of introductory tutorial section that teaches players about potions, and crucially, conditions them into using potions regularly and not hoarding them.

Trust me, that would not help, you always keep the potions in reserve for the tougher encounters that are sure to come soon. The only game I didn't have that problem was Morrowind, because I was my own potion dispenser with Alchemy skill at 100.

[Jon of the Wired]

I had no idea people actually

Wow, I had no idea people actually liked Vancian magic; I thought everyone merely tolerated it. I'm ambivalent towards cool-downs, but the five minute work day is absolutely terrible game design.

 

How old are you?

 

Old enough to have been playing D&D for twenty years or so. Which, it turns out, is plenty of time to develop a deep-seated hatred of Vancian magic.

 

Okay. Just curious. In the early 80s I dont recall too many alternatives for PnP fantasy RPGs. So if you hated them then you pretty much hated PnP RPGs.

 

I hate Vancian magic, but I don't hate D&D. I just never, ever play a spellcaster.

[andreisiadi]

I had no idea people actually

Wow, I had no idea people actually liked Vancian magic; I thought everyone merely tolerated it. I'm ambivalent towards cool-downs, but the five minute work day is absolutely terrible game design.

 

How old are you?

 

Old enough to have been playing D&D for twenty years or so. Which, it turns out, is plenty of time to develop a deep-seated hatred of Vancian magic.

 

Okay. Just curious. In the early 80s I dont recall too many alternatives for PnP fantasy RPGs. So if you hated them then you pretty much hated PnP RPGs.

 

just because he says he's been playing for 20 years don't make it true. people may lie on the internet don't you know.

[Captain Shrek]

Josh has decided to cleverly sidestep me or he has missed my post.

 

I think the reason there is a failure to convince him that Cooldowns are not good for tactical gameplay is coming from the need to so in one post or with one example or with a few lines of text. It is at least clear in my mind that this issue can not be dealt with so easily and requires walls of texts to be communicated right. But this forum seems to be a bad platform for such discussion.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Captain Shrek

[evdk]

I like the fatigue mechanic but it is mostly just a variation on the mana mechanic. Eventually your fatigue pool drops. Could be just a few high level spells before it happens. Then you either suffer some kind of physical injury and then have to go rest to gain back your fatigue or you just have to go rest to gain back your fatigue. The refill mechanic is still there.

Yeah, but with a few lucky rolls you might keep going whole day like the Energizer bunny. I always liked the uncertainty.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

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?

 

If the time spent in walking back to the campsite/resting is less time than Standing-Still spamming waiting for the cool downs to come back, then I'll take the former. If the cool downs are quicker, then I'll take the cool downs and go make a cup of tea or do something else in that time. The difference between the two is that in the former, I'm playing the game to go back to town and rest, in the latter I'm not playing the game at all to get my cool downs back.

 

There should be some danger or consequence when going back to town within the game. There are no consequences when Standing-Still spamming since there would probably be no timed quests or urgency to move forward.

[Blackstream]

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.

No. I haven't though a tremendous amount about healing points, but that brings up an interesting parallel resource management behavior in RPGs. I've seen (and talked to) innumerable gamers who say they end games with inventories full of consumables: potions, wands, scrolls, etc. The most commonly cited reason they give is that they don't know when is/isn't a good time to use them. Also, because they often have no idea when they might get more, they don't want to run out. It's sort of the inverse problem of rest spamming.

 

I'm one of those players. My playthroughs of baldur's gate typically have me not really using my fun spells for 99% of fights, and I have potion cases FULL of all sorts of potions and scrolls that I might use in a situation someday maybe. And wands and stuff. And whatever. I figure I use it when I get to a fight I need it, but my team building is good enough that I never need it... but I don't just wanna chuck out potions for the reason you put up. Now to some degree I realize this is just a problem of mine and not all game design because I'm like this in literally every game with consumables. On the other hand, if they're buyable or I get them in droves, I tend to spam their usage to avoid having to use other consumables/rest/whatever LOL.

 

On a related note though, if there's some way of getting extra reliable consumables (say alchemy or something), suddenly it's a spammable for me. Honestly though, my other problem is that I just straight up forget they're in my inventory too (skyrim potions have this issue for me), but that's another matter entirely.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Blackstream

[Infinitron]

I'm not sure if that's really a problem of players "not knowing when to use potions", or if it's simply a manifestation of OCD hoarding behavior.

 

I've thought about this problem before myself and I think that, again, there needs to be some kind of introductory tutorial section that teaches players about potions, and crucially, conditions them into using potions regularly and not hoarding them.

Trust me, that would not help, you always keep the potions in reserve for the tougher encounters that are sure to come soon. The only game I didn't have that problem was Morrowind, because I was my own potion dispenser with Alchemy skill at 100.

 

What if the combat was so tough from the beginning that you had no choice?

[Jasede]

The problem with potion bloat is that the encounters often don't require you to use them to survive. I promise that if every fight was so difficult that you have to use them they'll be used a lot more.

 

So you can either remove potion bloat and make the fights scale to that or you can keep it and make the fights crushingly difficult. I'll always vote for the second option but more people would probably prefer the first one.

 

I'd vote the second one because using consumables is fun to me. It makes finding a potion much more worthwhile when its use can be the difference between victory or defeat.

[qstoffe]

Do you have a better solution? Mana pools have the same problem. They don't last forever and then you need a way to regen them. Usually involvign sleep or waiting around for half a day. Cooldowns are not a solution for obvious reasons. So what system is better? One with no limits on casting spellsl at all? That might work if everyone in the game is a spell caster.

 

A refined fatigue system discussed in other threads could be an alternative. In my opinion, basically ANY mechanic is worth trying over the type of cooldowns used in modern RPGs like Dragon Age.

[Eicee]

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.

No. I haven't though a tremendous amount about healing points, but that brings up an interesting parallel resource management behavior in RPGs. I've seen (and talked to) innumerable gamers who say they end games with inventories full of consumables: potions, wands, scrolls, etc. The most commonly cited reason they give is that they don't know when is/isn't a good time to use them. Also, because they often have no idea when they might get more, they don't want to run out. It's sort of the inverse problem of rest spamming.

 

 

My personal experience playing games is that running out is the problem, at least for me. In games where I can find these things no matter how freqent I tend to pile them up and never use them. But if there are things like vendors where i can reliably replenish( even if its a little costly) I use consumeables I find.

[GordonHalfman]

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.

No. I haven't though a tremendous amount about healing points, but that brings up an interesting parallel resource management behavior in RPGs. I've seen (and talked to) innumerable gamers who say they end games with inventories full of consumables: potions, wands, scrolls, etc. The most commonly cited reason they give is that they don't know when is/isn't a good time to use them. Also, because they often have no idea when they might get more, they don't want to run out. It's sort of the inverse problem of rest spamming.

 

Yes that's where I was going with that. You seem to worry a lot about this "prescience" problem, and I really don't think it's that big a deal. (People really did enjoy those games after all.)

 

And to repeat myself a bit, I'm only aware of 2 serious attempts to solve the problem completely, those being Dark Souls and Dragon Age. Dark Souls is the most hardcore solution possible, with rigid controls on healing, resting and saving. This worked for them but it's risky as hell if your gameplay balance isn't tight as a drum.

 

Dragon Age on the other hand went the other way, the party was fully restored after every fight. It made weaker fights meaningless, encounters as a whole became repetitive and completely lacking in tension unless there was a genuine risk of a total party wipe. Is this the direction you favour?

[Hypevosa]

I think that since there's a potion crafting system, you'll see potions used alot more. The problem with potions in the other games is you can only FIND them, they cannot be made, so they are a non-renewable resource. It's like being an environmentalist in a videogame, you must preserve the precious non-renewable resources.

[ogrezilla]

The problem with potion bloat is that the encounters often don't require you to use them to survive. I promise that if every fight was so difficult that you have to use them they'll be used a lot more.

 

So you can either remove potion bloat and make the fights scale to that or you can keep it and make the fights crushingly difficult. I'll always vote for the second option but more people would probably prefer the first one.

 

I'd vote the second one because using consumables is fun to me. It makes finding a potion much more worthwhile when its use can be the difference between victory or defeat.

if potions are plentiful, I would prefer to be using them often. If they are rare, I shouldn't need them often. But I don't like when they are common and I don't need them often.

[evdk]

 

 

What if the combat was so tough from the beginning that you had no choice?

Then I would try to keep them anyway, because if the beginning was so tough, the endgame must be Chaos Strikes Back level lunacy.

[metiman]

I think it's important to back up in this sort of discussion and ask the question: "What is it that makes cRPGs fun?" or "What is it that makes the spell casting aspect of cRPGs fun?" Because that's what one is monkeying with. The fun aspect. I'd rather have more tedium in backtracking back to camp then eliminate all the fun of the game entirely for a whole class of players. Again, playtesting. What if people find the cooldown version boring but don't have a good reason why? It's just something they feel. Fun is not always logical.