[Merged] Cooldown Thread

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

Then why haven't they clarified anything?

 

Perhaps because they didn't expect psychotic outbursts or threats of revoking the pledges unless this feature gets changed.

[Living One]

The fuss is about the fact that not everyone likes the combat in Dragon Age and MMORPGs and that is very likely what we are going to get. No one has ever implemented cooldown based combat that didn't suck. I don't think Obsidian is going to be the first. Oh, and when Sawyer and Feargus talk about "cooldowns" they mean the same thing that everyone else means when they use the term. They don't mean some brand new weird definition. They mean the sort of game timers that are so prevalent in WoW and DA2. Has anyone from Obsidian gone on record saying they didn't want their combat to be anything like Dragon Age?

I really didn't get the impression that it would be the same system as DA or MMORPGs. They still talked about strategically choosing spells and specifically avoided the rest system in the old games. Most importantly, these game developers aren't stupid. They know what they are doing.

Too bad there are no other current definition of cooldown system.And we are not sure they do.Keep in mind Obsidian survived Troika due to better business acumen.I honestly wouldn't be surprised if some of the most questionable decisions(generic fantasy,level scaling like DAO,cooldowns) were attempts to pander to disgruntled DAO fans.

 

long cooldowns still fit that definition but have a completely different impact on game design and combat.

Then why haven't they clarified anything?And will there still be meaningful resource-management if they really go with cooldowns?They frequent internet communities,they'd likely know about the rep of cooldowns,yet they don't clear things up.I guess I'll have to wait and see if I should re-pledge or not.

I hate to speculate, but its 7 in the morning where they are, so its reasonable to assume its because they are sleeping.

 

And was there meaningful resource management in any of the old IE games? Not really. And definitely not when it comes to spells.

When I said about clarifyng was more about being clearer from the start(hence why I wondered if they knew about cooldowns and how they are viewed).But,then again Wirdjos is probably right and they don't know yet.As for management of spells I would have prefered if they tried to fix the problem instead of going with cooldowns.

Anyway it doesn't matter.I'll just have to wait and see and decide to either pledge,buy it normally or not.

[ogrezilla]

The quote specifically mentions mimicing the mechanics of the vancian system.

It's a similar balancing system without requireing the whole resting for spells. As for ablities being on that timer, D&D also had certain abilities that could only be used a certain number of times per day - again we want to mimic that with a cool down system.

I really don't know how people are reading these quotes and coming to the conclusion that we are getting the DA:O combat system.

Edited October 2, 2012 by ogrezilla

[ET3D]

In fact, in Baldur's Gate, 9 out of 10 battle's my Mage was always sitting it out in some corner while my 5 other Heroes slaughtered the mobs of foes. Because either I could do some quick burst damage that wouldn't last even ONE fight, or I could save it for a boss fight. I am quite against the Resting -> Nuking procedure.

 

I remember this from my D&D 2nd Ed gaming and PC games. The Wizard is often the one who does pretty much nothing as the fighters (and clerics, and thieves), who can make a damaging attack every round, do all the work. Low level wizards were just not at all fun to play (IMO).

 

J. Sawyer's talk about 'going in blind' being a negative, being forced to reload, etc, as a strike against memorising spells, seems slightly wrongheaded. I think someone mentioned earlier the idea of giving the player signals about what lay ahead, but it doesn't even have to be that explicit. The D & D player party wanders into an ancient temple filled with many-eyed statues. 'Aha,' thinks the player who's both engaged in the world and actively planning ahead, 'I should prepare for beholders. Let's head back to that old gypsy caravan and pick up some scrolls/open up my mage's spellbook and figure out how to counter them/maybe try and recruit that mad old wizard back at the inn so I have some scope'. Perhaps a local villager has the head of one of the local monsters on their wall; perhaps the local library contains scribblings about viable tactics against such beasts. If your party's about to face a central villain, presumably they've heard a little or seen a little about the spells and defences they're likely to use. There's absolutely no reason, in short, why memorised spells should lead to save-scumming or blind guesswork, so long as the encounter and dungeon design is good, and as long as the world is communicating with the player. That's not an inherent problem with the system.

 

And then, as described by Osvir, the party fights all the non-beholder enemies, and the wizard does nothing during all these encounters because he's waiting for the beholder encounter. And then the beholder is dead and the party wants to go down lower in the dungeon, or further in the world, but the wizard is without any spells, or what spells he has left are pretty specific, and then the party has to rest and go back to a generic spell makeup, or something like that. In short, you got to pick something strategic, but it was only momentary and pretty much ruined the use of the wizard for anything else, and the party was forced to delay because of that particular class.

[Wirdjos]

The quote specifically mentions mimicing the mechanics of the vancian system.

It's a similar balancing system without requireing the whole resting for spells. As for ablities being on that timer, D&D also had certain abilities that could only be used a certain number of times per day - again we want to mimic that with a cool down system.

I really don't know how people are reading these quotes and coming to the conclusion that we are getting the DA:O combat system.

 

I'm telling you, it's all about the keywords. People hear any hint of 'cooldowns' and every system that was ever described that way is now how this game is going to work. I understand where they are coming from. I read the entire 400 post thread that gave birth to this one without realizing where that idea was coming from.

[LadyCrimson]

simple cool down system - instead of requiring rest to regain spells, have spells slowly be regained, starting with the lowest levels which "recharge" the fastest, and the higher spells taking longer to recharge, and only recharging after the earlier ones have charged.

 

This way the spells maintain potency and diversity so they're key strategy pieces like the vancian system, but you aren't forced to rest to regain them.

I was going to voice my displeasure (politely, of course! ) about the idea of cooldowns being used in P.E., but then I read this. As a substitute/way around the constant resting issue, I like it.

 

What I dislike is, as others have said, the WoW or Diablo-like combat cooldown systems. But using an extremely slow cooldown (varied per spell) as a way to revive your available spells, instead of having to hit a "rest and memorize" button...that I could work with.

[MReed]

Cooldowns seem like a real mistake to me.

 

If the cooldown timers are short (say, ~1-5 minutes) and reset automatically at the end of combat, then I don't see any way to avoid getting into a situation where there are very few spells (say, 20 total), out of which there are only 2-3 spells that are actually useful.

 

If the cooldown times are long (> 5 minutes) and don't reset at the end of combat, then at least some portion of the players are going to end up standing around and doing nothing while waiting for the timers to reset. Even if you oppose rest-spamming (why you would in a single player game I'm not sure, but...) I think everyone will agree that this is very much the definition of "not fun". Increasing the cooldown timers to multiple realtime hours just further increases the "not fun" factor.

 

A couple of different mixed modes have been suggested in this thread as well:

 

1) Where the player has slots that are filled with spells (similar to a Vancian system), but the slots reset based on a cooldown system. If there are a large number of highly specialized spells (the BG / IWD system) then this devolves into something very similar to the Vancian system -- you'll still need to go into combat / find clues as to what you need, reload (if necessary), then make sure that the right specialized spells are in the right slots. If there are only a relatively few, general spells (compared to the number of "slots" available) then it is equivalent to allowing a partial respec of your character, and would be used just about as frequently.

2) A system that punishes "waiting around" in some fashion (quests expiring, wandering monsters, or similar) and has long cooldowns. But... You could do the exact same thing with a Vancian system.

 

There may be ways to make a cooldown system work like a Vancian system -- but in that case, why not just save time and use a Vancian system in the first place?

 

I'd really, really like to see a dev post that indicates what they see as the strengths of a cooldown system rather than discussing the weakness of a Vancian system.

[Ieo]

What if the cooldowns were on a day like timer (i.e. Fireball 2x a day) and we have limited rest?

 

As I suggested earlier, timers can be very easily adjusted across the difficulty settings, perhaps at the very hardest setting disabled entirely. But--

 

I hope you are right.

 

I think I'm pretty clsoe to the truth when I say that people who back this project up most enthusiasticly want that old IE magic back. They want the feel. If the mechanics change too much, that feel will not be there anymore.

 

See, an in depth story with tactical and strategic thinking as well as an in depth role playing experience is what I am looking for, which has more to do with the game as a whole as opposed to the mechanics.

 

I'm in agreement that I see this as a whole--the only people who are dead set against this and seriously considering un-pledging are the players who place priority on crunchiness and not the world setting and dialogic content. (If the poll in my sig is any indication--yes, I know--setting exploration and story-telling are many players' priority. I expect most players are interested in all three areas, but priority differs.)

 

People are also talking about this whole "cooldown" thing in a complete vacuum. There are several other variables that mesh with this particular mechanic to make any combat interesting.

• AI: Enemy AI can be pretty atrocious; Baldur's Gate suffered from this.
  
• Enemy variety: Dragon Age suffered from this. You got one major type of enemy and only three subtypes (melee, mage caster thing, archer), and DAO tried to make up for that with quantity, which was all sorts of stupid.
  
• Soul: SO MUCH POTENTIAL HERE.
  
• Exhaustion: Stuff mentioned before in this thread and elsewhere.
  
• Mana/power: No mention of this, I don't think it's ruled out. Can be used as a dimensional limiter as well.
  
• Application to what: CD can be applied to different things, not just the ability itself, like the rest/recharge period or something.
  
• Probably other things I can't think of because it's still 7:30am over here.
  

I have faith Obsidian is not going to implement a 'vacuous' cooldown system like people are suggesting here.

[Living One]

The quote specifically mentions mimicing the mechanics of the vancian system.

It's a similar balancing system without requireing the whole resting for spells. As for ablities being on that timer, D&D also had certain abilities that could only be used a certain number of times per day - again we want to mimic that with a cool down system.

I really don't know how people are reading these quotes and coming to the conclusion that we are getting the DA:O combat system.

So,it's basically the same as Vancian with flawed resting,the difference being you don't have to press a rest button?Again,I would have prefered if they fixed the system instead of going this route.Plus,this way don't I just have to stand still after a battle to wait for the cooldown?

In any case I'll still go for a wait and see approach.

[ogrezilla]

Cooldowns seem like a real mistake to me.

 

If the cooldown timers are short (say, ~1-5 minutes) and reset automatically at the end of combat, then I don't see any way to avoid getting into a situation where there are very few spells (say, 20 total), out of which there are only 2-3 spells that are actually useful.

 

Why? What is the connection here?

 

If the cooldown times are long (> 5 minutes) and don't reset at the end of combat, then at least some portion of the players are going to end up standing around and doing nothing while waiting for the timers to reset. Even if you oppose rest-spamming (why you would in a single player game I'm not sure, but...) I think everyone will agree that this is very much the definition of "not fun". Increasing the cooldown timers to multiple realtime hours just further increases the "not fun" factor.

 

The problem with rest spamming, even in a single player game, was that the encounters were balanced assuming you had to carefully use your spells but the mechanics didn't actually make you do that. Basically, you were significantly stronger than the game was designed for you to be. I do wonder how they would deal with people simply waiting around.

[Shevek]

If rest spamming is a problem, just limit rest.

[ogrezilla]

The quote specifically mentions mimicing the mechanics of the vancian system.

It's a similar balancing system without requireing the whole resting for spells. As for ablities being on that timer, D&D also had certain abilities that could only be used a certain number of times per day - again we want to mimic that with a cool down system.

I really don't know how people are reading these quotes and coming to the conclusion that we are getting the DA:O combat system.

So,it's basically the same as Vancian with flawed resting,the difference being you don't have to press a rest button?Again,I would have prefered if they fixed the system instead of going this route.Plus,this way don't I just have to stand still after a battle to wait for the cooldown?

In any case I'll still go for a wait and see approach.

I wonder about the standing around myself. I hope they aren't just hoping the hassle of standing around will be enough to discourage it. One way to deal with that would be making time move with in game triggers instead of with real time. So when you travel to a new screen, some amount of game time passes. That way the developers know exactly how many spells you will recharge before entering each new area. It would need to work in a way that you can't just go back and forth obviously. Then each area can be designed knowing that you have a finite number of spells to get through it and the encounters can be balanced for that. Either have fights like random skeletons and whatnot to add attrition or more difficult encounters where you will need multiple spells for one fight.

 

Keep in mind, I'm not a developer. I'm some guy who came up with that in about 2 minutes as I typed it out.

Edited October 2, 2012 by ogrezilla

[Osvir]

Pack Mule needs to happen, not only do you replenish all your spells and memorization and so forth but it also carries all of your excessive crap. Your own personal pack mule could be found in the stables in cities, and you could bring it with you and have it outside dungeons for easier access.

 

I can see some pretty neat and cool risks with bringing it with you to the dungeons (even leaving it out in cities too). How bandits could loot it (but instead of never returning your gear you can seek out the bandits and reclaim it). The Pack Mule could, mechanically, be a tactical friend where you choose what to bring with you into the dungeon. The Pack Mule would be the "Large Inventory", whilst the player character(s) have a rather small and limited inventory (mostly for scrolls, potions and similar).

 

I've been somewhat bothered (Only roleplaying wise) how my team in Baldur's Gate can carry full inventories and fight like boss's all of them. With 5 chainmail armors, weapons, scrolls, potions, heck I start to feel that swinging the backpack would do more damage than a clunky old sword (even if it were to be enchanted).

[idonthavetimeforthiscrap]

Rather than cooldowns, spellcasters could have a sort of “mana bar” (stay with me there for a minute) based on intelligence/wisdom and partly constitution and which becomes “longer” with leveling up. Higher level spells would have a “mana” cost too high for low level casters, maintaining balance. It’s a sort of “fatigue”, the caster can choose to cast low level spells and be able to cast many of them, or higher level spells which wear him out more quickly. Obviously this bar doesn’t regenerate (like in Arcanum, as someone suggested) and potions to regenerate it exist but are waaaaaaaaaaay too rare to be used normally, and should only be employed for important encounters. I’m talking 4/5 potions in the whole explorable world.

 

Specialist casters could choose options that lower the cost of spells in a specific casting school, but make it higher in the “opposite” school (or not). Cantrips don’t fatigue the caster, and very high level casters can choose a skill that makes 1st level spells be casted as cantrips and so on. When the caster rests, the fatigue regenerates. It regenerates completely only in taverns and similar, and in the wild it only regenerates partially. Of course resting should only be possible at minimum intervals.

 

This makes casting a much more tactical matter and prevents casters from becoming too powerful too early (baldur’s gate fireball?), allows you to choose among any spell you can cast instead of only the memorized ones and can have interesting/fun moments where a rested mage saves the day by casting a powerful spell but then is too tired to cast anything but cantrips, so now it’s the rest of the team’s responsibility to protect him and so on.

 

As a practical example, a level 1 mage has 10 “mana” or “fatigue” or whatever. A level 1 spell costs 4 mana, so he can cast 2. A mage with a higher intelligence has 12 mana, so he can cast 3. A level 2 spell costs 8 mana, so he CAN cast something a bit higher than he’s supposed to, but then he’d be too tired to do anything else. At level 3 the mage has 28 mana, so he can either cast 2 lvl 2 spells or a lvl 2 spells and 5 lvl 1 spells (I’m just making stuff up, don’t take these numbers as actual proposals for a scaling system). Gear that affects your intelligence or your “mana” makes you capable of casting more stuff obviously. Special gear has a “mana bar” of its own which can only be used with a certain level of spells and it regenerates slowly, so a ring that gives you 4 mana to cast lvl 1 spells will allow you to cast a lvl 1 spell and then it will (slowly) start to regenerate, and later on during the “day” you’ll be able to use it again. Etc.

 

This would allow for a sort of spell “customization” too, a sort of metamagic. Do you want your acid arrow to do more damage? It will still be a second level spell, but will cost some more. Do you want to target multiple targets? Some perk or skill will allow you to do that, but it’ll cost you more energy to do so.

 

Also rather than finding scrolls and memorizing them, you could learn how to use a “basic” magic ability and then be able to modify it according to needs. Let’s say that you learn to cast an “arrow” of raw magical energy. With some extra training and energy, you can make this “arrow” into acid, or fire (let’s say you find a troll) or ice if you find some fire elemental, and so on, to retake a different thread about customization of spells. Why should I throw a fireball, if a similar spell but with acid will serve me better?

 

This could also get some sort of connection with the whole “souls” things, which, from what little I have gathered, play a role when it comes to spellcasting. Let’s say that at character creation you can choose some sort of “soul” affinity with fire. You’ll be more resistant to it, and casting fire-based stuff will be easier to you, but water/ice casting stuff will be very difficult and wear you out quickly.

 

 

Well that’s it, those were my two cents, it’s just that I prefer literally anything to cooldowns. Cheers.

[MReed]

Cooldowns seem like a real mistake to me.

 

If the cooldown timers are short (say, ~1-5 minutes) and reset automatically at the end of combat, then I don't see any way to avoid getting into a situation where there are very few spells (say, 20 total), out of which there are only 2-3 spells that are actually useful.

 

Why? What is the connection here?

 

 

Some spells are inevitably better than others -- to take one obvious D&D example, "Charm monster" is better than "Charm person". As a result, the only reason to use "Charm person" when you have "Charm monster" available is because "Charm monster" is on cooldown. If the cooldown timers are short (allowing one spell to be cast multiple times per encounter), then the odds are very high that you will never end up in a situation where you need to use "Charm person". In a Vancian system, though, you might (and fact, probably would) not want to dedicate the higher level spell slot to a rarely needed spell like "Charm monster", but would be willing to commit the lower level spell slot to "Charm person".

 

And yes, this only applies if the cooldown timers are short, and that was the context of this quote in the first place.

 

If the cooldown times are long (> 5 minutes) and don't reset at the end of combat, then at least some portion of the players are going to end up standing around and doing nothing while waiting for the timers to reset. Even if you oppose rest-spamming (why you would in a single player game I'm not sure, but...) I think everyone will agree that this is very much the definition of "not fun". Increasing the cooldown timers to multiple realtime hours just further increases the "not fun" factor.

 

The problem with rest spamming, even in a single player game, was that the encounters were balanced assuming you had to carefully use your spells but the mechanics didn't actually make you do that. Basically, you were significantly stronger than the game was designed for you to be. I do wonder how they would deal with people simply waiting around.

 

The game should be balanced based on the assumption that you won't rest often. Player who rest more frequently will have an easier time than the baseline, obviously, and that's exactly what those players were looking for. In any case, my point is that people will do this if that's what they feel they need to do to defeat the next encounter -- or maybe they will just give up on the game altogether, figuring that a game that is designed so that they have to leave their computer running overnight (8 hour cooldown) just to survive the next encounter (because they "suck") isn't a game that they want to play.

[Merin]

I see it's tempest in a teapot time again.

 

If the lack of vancian and the inclusion of any kind of cool down is the breaking point for you...

 

awesome

 

You want to let everyone know it's a "bad decision?"

 

righteous

 

Threatening to not pledge, or to pull your pledge?

 

Take your ball and go home, then. Plenty of us here to fill the void. You won't be missed.

[TrashMan]

Then why haven't they clarified anything?

 

Perhaps because they didn't expect psychotic outbursts or threats of revoking the pledges unless this feature gets changed.

 

Why would you think revoking the pledge is psychotic?

 

It's his money - if he thinks it's not the game he thoght it will be, then he's free to revoke it.

 

Hell, I'll probably reduce my pledge too (still undecided).

 

Without resting it's just not the same atmosphere. I dont' care if it's anacian or fatigue, but no resting? Part of the charm is simply gone.

Edited October 2, 2012 by TrashMan

[Jaesun]

Let's just hope there will be some clarification on this from Obsidian later today.

[Ieo]

Then why haven't they clarified anything?

 

Perhaps because they didn't expect psychotic outbursts or threats of revoking the pledges unless this feature gets changed.

 

Why would you think revoking the pledge is psychotic?

 

It's his money - if he thinks it's not the game he thoght it will be, then he's free to revoke it.

 

Hell, I'll probably reduce my pledge too (still undecided).

 

Without resting it's just not the same atmosphere. I dont' care if it's anacian or fatigue, but no resting? Part of the charm is simply gone.

Once again--you're thinking in a vacuum. (Can't you people be a little more creative? LOL )

 

Example:

 

There are cooldowns on specific spells that can be tuned according to difficulty level.

You have a finite mana pool that doesn't recharge in combat and recharges slowly out of combat.

Add some soul in there somewhere, I dunno how.

The more you cast, the more you're exhausted, which cumulatively burdens your casting, and cannot be removed without resting.

 

Voila, worked the magical Vancian 'resting' into it.

 

There are a number of ways it can be done too.

[Living One]

The quote specifically mentions mimicing the mechanics of the vancian system.

It's a similar balancing system without requireing the whole resting for spells. As for ablities being on that timer, D&D also had certain abilities that could only be used a certain number of times per day - again we want to mimic that with a cool down system.

I really don't know how people are reading these quotes and coming to the conclusion that we are getting the DA:O combat system.

So,it's basically the same as Vancian with flawed resting,the difference being you don't have to press a rest button?Again,I would have prefered if they fixed the system instead of going this route.Plus,this way don't I just have to stand still after a battle to wait for the cooldown?

In any case I'll still go for a wait and see approach.

I wonder about the standing around myself. I hope they aren't just hoping the hassle of standing around will be enough to discourage it. One way to deal with that would be making time move with in game triggers instead of with real time. So when you travel to a new screen, some amount of game time passes. That way the developers know exactly how many spells you will recharge before entering each new area. It would need to work in a way that you can't just go back and forth obviously. Then each area can be designed knowing that you have a finite number of spells to get through it and the encounters can be balanced for that. Either have fights like random skeletons and whatnot to add attrition or more difficult encounters where you will need multiple spells for one fight.

 

Keep in mind, I'm not a developer. I'm some guy who came up with that in about 2 minutes as I typed it out.

I don't want to increase the number of potentially pointless speculations but:

1-I remember(I think) Sawyer,during some conference with devs or something,saying that his solution to prevent the players from save scumming in front of the slot machines(Fallout New Vegas) was to put a short time limit(aka cooldown or stand around) to the slot machines usage upon reloading.

2-Arcanum's fatigue system was open to the stand around problem.And this is made from PE's other designer.

Granted,they may have different views now, or maybe they always thought there were better ways but that was the only viable solution due Arcanum's messy development or FO3 save system or something else,etc.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Living One

[MReed]

I may well reduce my pledge (not only because of this, but also due to the announcement that level scaling will be included).

 

And I really don't think that I'm going to be alone if I do -- even the folks that are arguing "in favor" of cooldowns are taking the position that "Cooldown can play just like Vancian magic (but without some poorly defined drawback), so don't panic." If the primary argument in favor of feature X is that it plays more or less the same as feature Y, then something is seriously wrong with the gameplay design.

[ogrezilla]

 

Some spells are inevitably better than others -- to take one obvious D&D example, "Charm monster" is better than "Charm person". As a result, the only reason to use "Charm person" when you have "Charm monster" available is because "Charm monster" is on cooldown. If the cooldown timers are short (allowing one spell to be cast multiple times per encounter), then the odds are very high that you will never end up in a situation where you need to use "Charm person". In a Vancian system, though, you might (and fact, probably would) not want to dedicate the higher level spell slot to a rarely needed spell like "Charm monster", but would be willing to commit the lower level spell slot to "Charm person".

 

And yes, this only applies if the cooldown timers are short, and that was the context of this quote in the first place.

 

 

Are you assuming that all spells are always available with cooldowns as the only limiting factor? Have they said they are getting rid of spell levels and limited spell slots? That's an entirely separate issue.

 

The game should be balanced based on the assumption that you won't rest often. Player who rest more frequently will have an easier time than the baseline, obviously, and that's exactly what those players were looking for. In any case, my point is that people will do this if that's what they feel they need to do to defeat the next encounter -- or maybe they will just give up on the game altogether, figuring that a game that is designed so that they have to leave their computer running overnight (8 hour cooldown) just to survive the next encounter (because they "suck") isn't a game that they want to play.

 

Isn't that what the difficulty settings are for? I really don't like game mechanics that require you to handicap yourself to get the desired effect. The smart way to play the old games was to rest spam. It was simply more effective.

[ogrezilla]

I may well reduce my pledge (not only because of this, but also due to the announcement that level scaling will be included).

 

And I really don't think that I'm going to be alone if I do -- even the folks that are arguing "in favor" of cooldowns are taking the position that "Cooldown can play just like Vancian magic (but without some poorly defined drawback), so don't panic." If the primary argument in favor of feature X is that it plays more or less the same as feature Y, then something is seriously wrong with the gameplay design.

If feature Y is largely excellent but has a serious flaw that feature X can avoid, then I don't see anything wrong with that.

Edited October 2, 2012 by ogrezilla

[Wirdjos]

Then why haven't they clarified anything?

 

Perhaps because they didn't expect psychotic outbursts or threats of revoking the pledges unless this feature gets changed.

 

Why would you think revoking the pledge is psychotic?

 

It's his money - if he thinks it's not the game he thoght it will be, then he's free to revoke it.

 

Hell, I'll probably reduce my pledge too (still undecided).

 

Without resting it's just not the same atmosphere. I dont' care if it's anacian or fatigue, but no resting? Part of the charm is simply gone.

 

I get what you are saying and would agree if there was an official statement detailing the combat system. There wasn't. So at the first hint of something he might disagree with, he is throwing his hands in the air and threatening to pull his funding. I wasn't struck by the idea, just the suddenness. And he wasn't the only one. It makes us seem like crybabies and is going to put Obsidian on the defensive i.e. withholding information. I would like to avoid that please.

[Merin]

I may well reduce my pledge (not only because of this, but also due to the announcement that level scaling will be included).

 

And I really don't think that I'm going to be alone if I do --

 

 

 

even the folks that are arguing "in favor" of cooldowns are taking the position that "Cooldown can play just like Vancian magic (but without some poorly defined drawback), so don't panic." If the primary argument in favor of feature X is that it plays more or less the same as feature Y, then something is seriously wrong with the gameplay design.

 

I'd say many of them are just trying to calm people like you, make you see how we don't know what cool downs means yet and that it could be very similar to what you want.

 

I've not hatred of vancian, but I'd rather not have it. I've no love of cool downs, I can live with them.

 

Again, everyone who was expecting D&D 3E - you are going to be very disappointed. Brace for it.