[Merged] Cooldown Thread

[Ieo]

I do what I can. I don't want to sound like a jerk, but I might suggest someone addresses this issue before the townsfolk light their torches

I already have.

 

I am loving Mr. Sawyer more each time he posts on this subject. The man just refuses to be pushed around and it is simply amazing. Bravo again, sir.

 

Oh, stop the brown nosing. You're paying this man money for a product. He owes you, not vice versa.

 

We need more details.

 

Obsidian has been clear that they do have a vision, and this is part of that. They were also clear that they look for player feedback for massaging the details.

 

This thread was intended to highlight preferences and ideas around the details that would keep the usage of CDs on the "path of good" as spoken of in the OP quote.

 

The only clear things about the particularly vocal minority are that (1) they prefer whining instead of being constructive with potential implementation and (2) they are extremely narrow in viewpoint and see "cooldown" purely in a vacuum without any regard to the many other variables that construct the entire game world, mechanically. For people who place 'tactical strategy' on such a high pedestal, I'm a bit perplexed at this complete lack of creativity.

[diablo169]

Seriously need more detail before I can make my mind up about this, its all rather cryptic,

[Wirdjos]

I do what I can. I don't want to sound like a jerk, but I might suggest someone addresses this issue before the townsfolk light their torches

I already have.

 

I am loving Mr. Sawyer more each time he posts on this subject. The man just refuses to be pushed around and it is simply amazing. Bravo again, sir.

 

Oh, stop the brown nosing. You're paying this man money for a product. He owes you, not vice versa.

 

We need more details.

 

I'm not brown nosing, I'm making sure noone misses the reality check here. They owe us nothing. I want more information too, but Mr. Sawyer has resounding stated that he will not allow the fears of funders to alter the vision he and Obsidian has for the game. That gives me more hope for this project than anything else. He's listening, he has read this thread, but at the end of the day the developers are going to decide how the game runs, not us.

[Gfted1]

Or it means you will have to stand there for 8 game hours waiting for your abilities to replenish. At least "resting" would fast forward that process.

Cooldowns to replace resting sounds acceptable but there is still this potential problem.Then again I can live with it(sort of).

 

Cooldowns to replace resting is just sematics. If an artificial time limit is introduced that forces players to stand around with no way to "advance time" (rest) then that diminished that classes ability. Using BG2 as an example, how many battles occured in 8 game hours? A lot. So because they want to remove the players choice of how to play, casters are relegated to either "saving" spells or blowing thier spells. Both results end up being the caster is diminished because they have nothing to do during encounters.

 

I wonder if such artificial limitations will be placed on melee classes. I mean, its overpowering if my warrior can cleave all day long or my archer can launch endless vollies on exploding arrows, right?

[Osvir]

People like what they are used to, generally. It is called conservatism and it exists more so in every heart of man than man's self would like to accept or confess.

 

Now, onwards to the cooldowns... if they would replenish spells each 8 hours... you would get a full worth of a Mage fully capable 3 times an in-game day. 4 times if resting is not involved at all (removed from the game completely). I like it.

 

I would like to suggest the existence of resting still, but with it's own cooldown (16 hour to 24 hour cooldown). It does give to the atmosphere.

 

EDIT:

 

Using BG2 as an example' date=' how many battles occured in 8 game hours? A lot.[/quote']

 

So let's say you have 8/8 spells, you throw all 8 so now you are down on 0/8. One hour passes in-game time and you suddenly have 1/8.

 

This cooldown system, to my understanding, isn't that you replenish all 8 after 8 hours. But over time.

 

From a more tactical realistic view, I encounter a mob, take it down with 2 spells, I am now down to 6/8. I roam around to find another mob, I take it down with 2 spells so I am down to 4/8, but 1 in-game hour has passed since I cast the first two spells so I am really at 5/8. Progressively my Mage will last longer, til night hits where I can Rest* and replenish all 8 "fast forward".

 

* This is only if Rest -is- implemented. It does seem like it isn't, but I will continue to emphasize it because I think that it can be used and adopted into this cooldown-based system that has been introduced.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Osvir

[Infinitron]

I'm not brown nosing, I'm making sure noone misses the reality check here. They owe us nothing.

 

This is a Kickstarter, man. They owe us everything.

 

But this is getting off topic.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Infinitron

[Gfted1]

They owe us nothing. I want more information too, but Mr. Sawyer has resounding stated that he will not allow the fears of funders to alter the vision he and Obsidian has for the game.

 

Except for boobplate?

[Wirdjos]

I'm not brown nosing, I'm making sure noone misses the reality check here. They owe us nothing.

 

This is a Kickstarter, man. They owe us everything.

 

And that's the mentality that I came in here with. In fact, I went a set further and was hoping this means of funding could replace publishers so that games gamers want could get made all the time. Someone corrected me then and so I'm trying to pass that along and correct you now. When the kickstarter is over, which believe me will be long before there's a real game to talk about, that money belongs to Obsidian and they can do whatever they want with it. They have no contract with us. They don't need to ever give us another update. We are funding a project due to faith in company, not for returns. We cannot pull funding after the fact. I repeat, they *owe* us nothing.

[codexer]

I'm not worried about cooldowns. I'm worried about spell selections and spell lists in general. Will they be as rich as the IE-games? I see no indication thereof, rather I see traces of the opinion that big chunks of the arcane spells of D&D are going out the window so as to not make wizard highly customizable and also prevent them from stepping on other classes toes. I guess I want omnipotence in high level wizards. My fear is that on a white board in the OE:HQ the following thing has been written out:

 

Fighters - Tank/DPS

Rogue - DPS/utility

Priest - heal/buff

Mage - DPS/controll

ranger - dualwielding / panther pet

etc.

 

PE:online (too soon to kickstart?)

[Infinitron]

I'm not brown nosing, I'm making sure noone misses the reality check here. They owe us nothing.

 

This is a Kickstarter, man. They owe us everything.

 

And that's the mentality that I came in here with. In fact, I went a set further and was hoping this means of funding could replace publishers so that games gamers want could get made all the time. Someone corrected me then and so I'm trying to pass that along and correct you now. When the kickstarter is over, which believe me will be long before there's a real game to talk about, that money belongs to Obsidian and they can do whatever they want with it. They have no contract with us. They don't need to ever give us another update. We are funding a project due to faith in company, not for returns. We cannot pull funding after the fact. I repeat, they *owe* us nothing.

 

lol, I'm not talking about their legal obligations. There are more important things in life than the letter of the law, you know.

 

If Obsidian go against the expectations of their pledgers, they'll lose fans and they'll find it difficult to do another Kickstarter. I'm sure you don't want that to happen, do you?

 

Now get a backbone and stop brown-nosing. Harsh criticism will make this game better for everybody.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Infinitron

[MReed]

ok, so you both immediately realize that having an 8 hour cooldown is a bad idea. Yet you both seem to think the developers don't realize that?

 

All I'm looking for is a dev post on what we are missing with the following scenarios (assuming that spell slots exists and can be filled via some non-cooldown related mechanic):

 

1) If cooldowns reset at the end of combat (or reset very quickly at the end of combat -- see most [all?] single player RPGs with cooldowns), then cooldowns need to be short (so that they come into play within an encounter) or are largely / completely irrelevant. Honestly, I'm not 100% opposed to short cooldowns of this sort -- from a gameplay standpoint, having mages ping away with slings in 99.9 % of the time but absolutely dominate combat the other 0.1% of the time isn't all that desirable. A system with some low level / common abilities on a short cooldown (with the "big guns" only available rarely) would address this problem -- but, as far as I can tell, this isn't what the developers are talking about...

2) If long cooldowns aren't reset at the end of combat, and there isn't "rest" mechanic to reset them faster, then there will be occasions where players will wait for cooldowns to regenerate (whether that's desired behavior or not, it will inevitably happen), which isn't fun.

3) If long cooldowns aren't reset at the end of combat, and there is a "rest" mechanic to reset them, then how is this different from the rest-spam that cooldown proponents are arguing is the primary reason why Vancian casting is undesirable.

 

FYI: "rest" is in quotation mark because it might not involve actually resting -- for example, there might be a (moderately common) consumable item that, when used, immediately resets cooldowns.

[GhostofAnakin]

Cooldowns to replace resting is just sematics. If an artificial time limit is introduced that forces players to stand around with no way to "advance time" (rest) then that diminished that classes ability. Using BG2 as an example, how many battles occured in 8 game hours? A lot. So because they want to remove the players choice of how to play, casters are relegated to either "saving" spells or blowing thier spells. Both results end up being the caster is diminished because they have nothing to do during encounters.

 

I wonder if such artificial limitations will be placed on melee classes. I mean, its overpowering if my warrior can cleave all day long or my archer can launch endless vollies on exploding arrows, right?

 

You may end up being correct, but one thing I'll say is your whole assumption is that by saying cooldowns replace resting they mean that cooldown times will replace resting times. It could very well simply mean one system is replacing the other, without the same "8 hour wait period" attached. The cooldown could happen much, much faster (in -game time) than that. Or there could be some other added feature to the cooldown system that "fast forwards" the time you have to wait to use your spells again.

 

This is why I'm waiting for more clarification before forming my final opinion on the topic. Right now all we're doing is speculating on what their somewhat vague statements mean.

[Wirdjos]

They owe us nothing. I want more information too, but Mr. Sawyer has resounding stated that he will not allow the fears of funders to alter the vision he and Obsidian has for the game.

 

Except for boobplate?

 

Do you not remember that thread. Mr. Sawyer posts in that discussion were on importance of functional armor and the unlikeliness of a 'boob plate'. There was no 'I guess you guys are right, let me fix it' that was all him telling us about his vision and how it matched the redraw.

[ogrezilla]

Or it means you will have to stand there for 8 game hours waiting for your abilities to replenish. At least "resting" would fast forward that process.

Cooldowns to replace resting sounds acceptable but there is still this potential problem.Then again I can live with it(sort of).

 

Cooldowns to replace resting is just sematics. If an artificial time limit is introduced that forces players to stand around with no way to "advance time" (rest) then that diminished that classes ability. Using BG2 as an example, how many battles occured in 8 game hours? A lot. So because they want to remove the players choice of how to play, casters are relegated to either "saving" spells or blowing thier spells. Both results end up being the caster is diminished because they have nothing to do during encounters.

 

I wonder if such artificial limitations will be placed on melee classes. I mean, its overpowering if my warrior can cleave all day long or my archer can launch endless vollies on exploding arrows, right?

1. I really doubt they leave cooldowns as high as 8 hours.

2. That was pretty much how the old games were designed. Rest spamming just broke mages and made them way stronger than they were meant to be.

[ogrezilla]

I'm not worried about cooldowns. I'm worried about spell selections and spell lists in general. Will they be as rich as the IE-games? I see no indication thereof, rather I see traces of the opinion that big chunks of the arcane spells of D&D are going out the window so as to not make wizard highly customizable and also prevent them from stepping on other classes toes. I guess I want omnipotence in high level wizards. My fear is that on a white board in the OE:HQ the following thing has been written out:

 

Fighters - Tank/DPS

Rogue - DPS/utility

Priest - heal/buff

Mage - DPS/controll

ranger - dualwielding / panther pet

etc.

 

PE:online (too soon to kickstart?)

what have they said that makes you think that? I haven't read anything that leads me to believe we will have limited spell choices. I'm not being condescending. I really would like to know.

Edited October 2, 2012 by ogrezilla

[Sargallath Abraxium]

They owe us nothing. I want more information too, but Mr. Sawyer has resounding stated that he will not allow the fears of funders to alter the vision he and Obsidian has for the game.

 

Except for boobplate?

 

 

...hehehe...boob...hehehe

 

 

...y'all knows Josh jus' be baitin' ya's, eh??...next he's gonna pull Overseer outta retirement an' close the topic, jus' like ol' times...

 

 

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

[ogrezilla]

ok, so you both immediately realize that having an 8 hour cooldown is a bad idea. Yet you both seem to think the developers don't realize that?

 

All I'm looking for is a dev post on what we are missing with the following scenarios (assuming that spell slots exists and can be filled via some non-cooldown related mechanic):

 

1) If cooldowns reset at the end of combat (or reset very quickly at the end of combat -- see most [all?] single player RPGs with cooldowns), then cooldowns need to be short (so that they come into play within an encounter) or are largely / completely irrelevant. Honestly, I'm not 100% opposed to short cooldowns of this sort -- from a gameplay standpoint, having mages ping away with slings in 99.9 % of the time but absolutely dominate combat the other 0.1% of the time isn't all that desirable. A system with some low level / common abilities on a short cooldown (with the "big guns" only available rarely) would address this problem -- but, as far as I can tell, this isn't what the developers are talking about...

2) If long cooldowns aren't reset at the end of combat, and there isn't "rest" mechanic to reset them faster, then there will be occasions where players will wait for cooldowns to regenerate (whether that's desired behavior or not, it will inevitably happen), which isn't fun.

3) If long cooldowns aren't reset at the end of combat, and there is a "rest" mechanic to reset them, then how is this different from the rest-spam that cooldown proponents are arguing is the primary reason why Vancian casting is undesirable.

 

FYI: "rest" is in quotation mark because it might not involve actually resting -- for example, there might be a (moderately common) consumable item that, when used, immediately resets cooldowns.

my guess is they literally don't have many of these answers yet.

[TrashMan]

I still stay cooldowns are garbage.

 

 

The resting "spam" can easily be fixed.

Don't allow resting in some areas.

OR

Don't allow saving everywhere (hence the reload-rest mechanics ceases to work)

 

What if you can only save in safe areas? Make resting in unsafe areas even unsafer?

 

 

There you go.

How would the player abuse it now?

 

 

Resting isn't a stupid mechanic. Never was. It was a mechanic that makes sesne because people haev to rest...and sleep

[Wirdjos]

lol, I'm not talking about their legal obligations. There are more important things in life than the letter of the law, you know.

 

If Obsidian go against the expectations of their pledgers, they'll lose fans and they'll find it difficult to do another Kickstarter. I'm sure you don't want that to happen, do you?

 

Now get a backbone and stop brown-nosing. Harsh criticism will make this game better for everybody.

 

You are staring at my backbone right now. How are you not seeing that? I want suggestions listened to because I think that might lead developers to better their ideas. I *do not* want developers swayed by whims of the community. There are too many of us and, quite frankly, not a lot of us have experience making games. Everything Mr. Sawyer has said gives me hope that this will be a single united project and not another Duke Nukem Forever that has to change weekly based on the whims of its supporters.

[ogrezilla]

I still stay cooldowns are garbage.

 

 

The resting "spam" can easily be fixed.

Don't allow resting in some areas.

OR

Don't allow saving everywhere (hence the reload-rest mechanics ceases to work)

 

What if you can only save in safe areas? Make resting in unsafe areas even unsafer?

 

 

There you go.

How would the player abuse it now?

 

 

Resting isn't a stupid mechanic. Never was. It was a mechanic that makes sesne because people haev to rest...and sleep

I would like that kind of setup. But I have a feeling you'd have people complaining about those changes as well. Particularly "save points"

[TrashMan]

They owe us nothing.

 

I'd say they owe us information. Let them make the game however they want. It is their game.

But it is also our money.

So we desrve to be informed when possible.

 

I don't expect info right away, but it should come.

[Osvir]

I still stay cooldowns are garbage.

 

The resting "spam" can easily be fixed.

Don't allow resting in some areas.

OR

Don't allow saving everywhere (hence the reload-rest mechanics ceases to work)

 

What if you can only save in safe areas? Make resting in unsafe areas even unsafer?

 

There you go.

How would the player abuse it now?

 

Resting isn't a stupid mechanic. Never was. It was a mechanic that makes sesne because people haev to rest...and sleep

 

Ya, but resting every 2 hours for 8 hours does seem quite narcoleptic (is that the right word for that sleeping sickness?).

 

I like the idea you are presenting of resting being much more of a risk.

 

I also agree that resting isn't a stupid mechanic. It could be way more developed and updated tho, Baldur's Gate resting system that is (which in modern today is quite, sorry to say it, stupid in comparison to what could be done with it).

 

EDIT: What people in here are basically saying is,

 

A: "I don't want a resting system a la Baldur's Gate! But I don't mind the cooldown from Dragon Age: origins."

 

or

 

B: "I don't want a cooldown system a la Dragon Age: Origins! But I don't mind the resting from Baldur's Gate."

 

Don't worry, this isn't either of those games. Instead of having A or B, how about joining them together creating a C?

 

C: A resting ability, once a day ability (a.k.a cooldown; 16-24 in-game hours). Spells gets replenished over time (not all at once, but 1 charge every now and again, let's say 1 charge once every in-game hour as an example. As your Mage becomes Meta-High Level God of Thunder maybe we'll allow him to replenish 2 charges once every in-game hour... maybe).

 

Instead of complaining, device something that is new school old school. That's way more interesting than the brown nosing.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Osvir

[Wintersong]

I'll trust Obsidian and their experience as game developers. I do prefer a stamina/resistance/mana/soulpowah system as limiting factor but whatever. Vancian system sucks anyways. D&D 4E with dailies and by encounters is not the end of the universe. I cannot remember D&D Next right now though, so I won't comment about their new mixed system.

[Merin]

I'm not brown nosing, I'm making sure noone misses the reality check here. They owe us nothing.

This is a Kickstarter, man. They owe us everything.

 

We're not investors. We aren't putting money into something to have control over it.

 

We are pledgers. Donators. Because you pledge or donate to NPR you don't get to have a say about the programming. The best you can do is pick when you pledge, showing support for certain shows. The same applies here - the best you can do is pledge to support after a certain feature or update is announced to show an overall like of something, but even that is drowned out in the noise of general pledges (as, too, is the "pledge during a given show" for NPR is.)

 

You are not the publisher. You are not the investor. The only say you have is whether you donate and how much you choose to donate. That's it.

 

You want more control - start your own development team.

[Infinitron]

I'm not brown nosing, I'm making sure noone misses the reality check here. They owe us nothing.

This is a Kickstarter, man. They owe us everything.

 

We're not investors. We aren't putting money into something to have control over it.

 

We are pledgers. Donators. Because you pledge or donate to NPR you don't get to have a say about the programming. The best you can do is pick when you pledge, showing support for certain shows. The same applies here - the best you can do is pledge to support after a certain feature or update is announced to show an overall like of something, but even that is drowned out in the noise of general pledges (as, too, is the "pledge during a given show" for NPR is.)

 

You are not the publisher. You are not the investor. The only say you have is whether you donate and how much you choose to donate. That's it.

 

You want more control - start your own development team.

 

Tell me, if that's true, then why are you spending time on this forum arguing with me and people like me?

 

Obviously you feel that showing your opinions does matter to the developers.

 

And guess what? THEY DO. You do have control. Our criticism here on this forum can change things in this game.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Infinitron