[Merged] Cooldowns 2.0

[ogrezilla]

it sounded to me like wherever the cooldown/rest line was drawn, it was going to stay there. I'm sure that's something they haven't set in stone yet.

 

I would be fine with that. That is, a fixed level from which you can spam ever-replenishing spells. Preferably those spells should be comparable in power to using a sling

I would be happy with that. I don't want high level spells to be available too often. Honestly, I like the idea of level 3 being the start of rest only. Any of the spells that go beyond "contributing" and start getting into "taking over the fight" territory should be rest only imo. Cooldown spells should be low damage spells or basic utility spells. If I have a good archer, they should outdamage a mage casting level 1 spells because the mage has the option of bringing the big guns out at any moment.

Edited October 6, 2012 by ogrezilla

[qstoffe]

Yes they have. For example Josh stated that he don't want rest spamming change to waiting around for cooldowns counters to go zero.

 

I think you missunderstood. That's what they will try to avoid. I want them to be more forthcoming in this matter i.e. "ok we're going to use this despite this and that con because we still think it's better than this and that alternative". Some self-criticism with the proposed system is what I'm looking for instead of just criticizing other systems. Turning a blind eye to that is not really helping the discussion imo. It's like they've already made up their minds.

 

my guess for cons is that the lowest level spells may end up being slightly weaker than they would be in a pure vancian system. As I've said, I will make that tradeoff to get rid of rock slinging every time since it should only be the low level spells affected. Any rest to recover spell should remain unchanged.

 

I think you're being a bit too optimistic. I'm under the impression cooldowns will be used a little harder than that.

Edited October 6, 2012 by qstoffe

[Elerond]

Yes they have. For example Josh stated that he don't want rest spamming change to waiting around for cooldowns counters to go zero.

 

I think you missunderstood. That's what they will try to avoid. I want them to be more forthcoming in this matter i.e. "ok we're going to use this despite this and that con because we still think it's better than this and that alternative". Some self-criticism with the proposed system is what I'm looking for instead of just criticizing other systems. Turning a blind eye to that is not really helping the discussion imo. It's like they've already made up their minds.

 

 

I don't see any point in that. If you know that there is con in your system you should look ways to get rid of that con instead to admit defeat and leave it to be, especially so early in development. In my opinion they should do just what they are doing, so to look what didn't work so well in past, look ways to fix that, look problems what fix can bring with it and ways to avoid those problems.

[qstoffe]

I don't see any point in that. If you know that there is con in your system you should look ways to get rid of that con...

 

That is like suggesting to a politician that he should only suggest things that has no cons. But we don't live in a perfect world. People who can't see, or admit to, both sides of an idea literally scares me.

[ogrezilla]

Yes they have. For example Josh stated that he don't want rest spamming change to waiting around for cooldowns counters to go zero.

 

I think you missunderstood. That's what they will try to avoid. I want them to be more forthcoming in this matter i.e. "ok we're going to use this despite this and that con because we still think it's better than this and that alternative". Some self-criticism with the proposed system is what I'm looking for instead of just criticizing other systems. Turning a blind eye to that is not really helping the discussion imo. It's like they've already made up their minds.

 

my guess for cons is that the lowest level spells may end up being slightly weaker than they would be in a pure vancian system. As I've said, I will make that tradeoff to get rid of rock slinging every time since it should only be the low level spells affected. Any rest to recover spell should remain unchanged.

 

I think you're being a bit too optimistic. I'm under the impression cooldowns will be used a little harder than that.

how so? it sounds like we still have spell slots similar to vancian, and higher level spells will still only recover from rest. So the only real changes should be to low level spells due to balancing around the cooldowns. I mean, the spells will likely see some changes themselves since this isn't actually D&D, but the cooldowns on low level spells shouldn't really necessitate changes to the spells without cooldowns. Maybe I'm missing something though. That is very much a possibility.

Edited October 6, 2012 by ogrezilla

[alanschu]

I wouldn't worry about Obsidian exercising some "self-criticism" towards their decisions. If you're hoping for them to be publicly discussed, you may be disappointed however.

 

Especially since they're still early in development.

[ogrezilla]

that early in development part is key. This game literally didn't exist three weeks ago.

[Ieo]

I don't see any point in that. If you know that there is con in your system you should look ways to get rid of that con...

 

That is like suggesting to a politician that he should only suggest things that has no cons. But we don't live in a perfect world. People who can't see, or admit to, both sides of an idea literally scares me.

 

You have to keep in mind these particular points:

 

Obsidian is aware of the deep divide about this mechanic.

Sawyer himself stepped into a few threads to clarify.

There's additional information now about how they're to be implemented along with examples--that are not set in stone.

 

Logically, if they really only wanted to address the "caster useless in battle half the time" problem or the "rest spam before every encoutner" problem, only the single spell cooldown implementation would have worked. But by virtue of choosing double-lock cooldowns with a combined rest mechanic (and a mystery soul mechanic) for higher level spells, Obsidian is actively working on addressing whatever cons there are from players who want more "strategic" challenge (JESawyer's quotes).

 

And let's not forget about the difficulty modes; D&D Vancian is very rigid and not open to mechanical scaling for difficulty modes. The tier cooldown, grimoire cooldown, rest requirements, etc. could all be tweaked for more customizd gameplay.

 

I think this will be very innovative.

[villain of the story]

My musings on combat magic mechanics:

 

(1) Replace cool-downs with casting times

 

Why? Because it's more tactical and interesting. I'm not a fan of ADND mechanics in IE games but they did some things right and this was one of them.

• Casting a spell takes time. That is a more interesting tactical consideration that is in your face than the waiting game for cool-downs. No instant cope outs.
  
• Casting can be interrupted which is another tactical consideration and a rather awesome one.
  
• IWD series had a Combat Casting feat that gave you a bonus to concentration so it was harder for enemies to interrupt your spell-casting and that defined your spell-caster character very sharply. Suddenly, the difference between a spell-caster who was simply back-up support and a combat caster became much dramatic. Perhaps something similar could be used in PE.
  

(2) Dynamic Casting Times

• Spells that are on the same level as you and higher, cause incremental penalties on casting times, making it take longer to cast consecutive spells. And vice versa: casting consecutive spells below your level take less and less time to cast.
  
• This might better emphasize the feel of progression and acquisition of power for a spell caster. And since high level spells would take the longest to cast anyway, it's unlikely this could be exploited.
  

(3) Switching Grimoires requires "casting"

• If switching Grimoires required an incantation or ritual that took time and could be interrupted, question of switching at all would become a more dramatic and tactically interesting consideration. And all the more reason to have an ability such as "combat casting" so that combat-oriented spell-casters can shine.
  

(4) A "Meditate" or "Concentrate" ability that acts like a spell

• Instead of a passive cool-down mechanic that doesn't involve the player in any means, meditation to recover that which is depleted and also to alleviate the casting time penalties (which would also neutralise the bonuses). Meditation itself could simply be sitting down on knees for as long as it takes to recover however amount of whatever and naturally, it could be interrupted. More tactically interesting.
  
• The key point about this instead of a cool-down is that it's an active choice to be made by the player. One big problem about cool downs is that they passive and they do not involve. They downgrade the combat experience to a gamist time management. DOES NOT INVOLVE. NOT FUN.
  

 

(5) A kind of "resource" or "pool" to regulate all of this

• Ie. basically what the cool-down would be without naming anything, which is odd because despite all that focus on souls, cool downs are like the worst thing you can do, devoid of a narrative connection. Anyway, this would be the resource that you would eventually need to replenish.
  

 

My main concern about all is player involvement. From my perspective, cool downs are the absolute worst and the laziest "solution" to a number of things because they not only not involve the player, they often exist in a vacuum and generally not make much of a sense. I still have trouble fitting cool downs anywhere into the PE's picture with souls powering so many things.

[villain of the story]

Maybe they'll finally pull of a cooldown system that really works for once. It's highly unlikely, especially without an extremely insightful analysis of what went wrong with all of the other attempts, but it's not impossible.

 

EXACTLY!

 

The thing that troubles me the most is that I've heard Obsidian talk about how bad the old vancian and resting system is... BUT not a word of criticism towards cooldowns (I may have missed some announcement and if I have, please tell). It would be nice if they at least acknowledged the flaws of that system in the same way.

 

That is probably because they have not done any games with cooldown sytem yet, but they have done games with vancian system.

 

A pretty big part of combat in Alpha Protocol revolves around cool-downs.

[ogrezilla]

did they say there are no casting times? I don't see why casting times and cooldowns would have to be mutually exclusive considering the cooldowns aren't even attached to individual spells.

Edited October 7, 2012 by ogrezilla

[villain of the story]

They didn't and I don't assume there will be none. Regardless, those are some of my ideas without any place or need for cool downs. Cool down = no player involvement. Lazy design.

[ogrezilla]

They didn't and I don't assume there will be none. Regardless, those are some of my ideas without any place or need for cool downs. Cool down = no player involvement. Lazy design.

the only difference cooldowns will ever have on an individual fight is potentially allowing you to cast extra low level spells in a long fight. Its not like you will be constantly juggling cooldowns like an MMO or diablo 3. That meditate idea seems fine if it just stops you from waiting for the cooldown for 30 seconds I guess but having it instead of the cooldown would just cause extra down time.

Edited October 7, 2012 by ogrezilla

[Elerond]

I don't see any point in that. If you know that there is con in your system you should look ways to get rid of that con...

 

That is like suggesting to a politician that he should only suggest things that has no cons. But we don't live in a perfect world. People who can't see, or admit to, both sides of an idea literally scares me.

 

Your example is somewhat misleading. Because my point was that in game design you know what is the goal which you want to achive with your sytem. This gives you to opportunity try design your sytem to use such mechanics that allow it to achive that goal without cons considering your goal, but in case where that is not possible you should accept this compromise only in end of the designing phase and choose those mechanics which offers need for least compromise. But if you start your designing with attidude that it's ok to have a flawed system because world is not perfect, then you will most likely create a flawed system.

[Jaesun]

So if I have been reading the newest info available (like the Matt Chat video and other sources) the combat proposal (again this is what they have as an idea, but not set in stone):

 

1 - Low Level Spells - Can cast X number of these. Once X is used up, those spells locked out, BUT are on a cool-down (Could be 30 seconds, 1 minute or 5 minutes) while in Combat. After combat all timers on them are reset, as in they are all available again at the next Combat Encounter.

 

2 - Mid Level Spells - Can cast X number of spells. Once X is used up, these spell tier levels are LOCKED. You cannot cast any more in the current combat. After combat all timers on them are reset, as in they are all available again at the next Combat Encounter.

 

(Example: Haste, Fireball, Lightening, Slow are in the level 3 tier, fear, blind, silence are in the 4th level tier. Once you cast how many spells allowed in the level 3 tier, they are locked out, for the duration of the combat. But then you can then go to the spell 4 tier spells can be cast, but again only a few of them out of all of them.

 

OR spell tier 3 AND 4 are connected as mid level tiers and only X number of spells can be cast from both tiers)

 

 

3 - Daily Spells - These spells can only be cast once time. Once cast, you can only cast them again until you rest again.

 

So basically Low and Mid tier spells - Always available in every combat. Daily spells only available if you currently have them.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Jaesun

[ogrezilla]

I missed that part about mid-level spells. not sure how I feel about that part. I guess it depends on the spells

[Jaesun]

I missed that part about mid-level spells. not sure how I feel about that part. I guess it depends on the spells

 

In my example above if you can only select x number of spells BETWEEN the level 3 AND 4 tier spells And then they are locked out for the duration of the combat... I'd be OK with that.

[Ieo]

Reference: Matt Chat video interview with Sawyer, with transcript in that thread. Edited October 7, 2012 by Ieo

[Jaesun]

This is kind of hard to explain (on a forum) but if it were something like:

 

Level 2 Mage

 

[Low Level Spells]

None

 

[Mid Level Spells]

Level 1 Spells [zap, burning hands, push away]

Level 2 spells [stun, bark skin, play dead]

You can choose 2 spells for this combat, then all spells in level 1 AND 2 lock out. After combat ends, you can use these again for the next combat encounter.

 

[High Level Spell]

Great Strength

You can cast any spells here once. Once it is cast is is lost. Period, until you rest again.

 

Level 6 Mage

 

[Low Level Spells]

Level 1 Spells [zap, burning hands, push away]

You can choose 1 spell and then the Level 1 spell tier is locked. It has a 1 minute cooldown and then you can select it again. After combat ends, you can use these again for the next combat encounter.

 

[Mid Level Spells]

Level 2 spells [stun, bark skin, play dead]

Level 3 spells [Fireball, haste, slow]

Level 4 spells [Lightening, blind]

You can choose 3 spells for this combat, then all spells in level 2,3 and 4 lock out for the remainder of this current combat. After combat ends, you can use these again for the next combat encounter.

 

[High Level Spell]

Great Strength, Wave of Fear, Great Dexterity

You can cast any spells here once. Once it is cast is is lost. Period, until you rest again.

 

This may be somewhat similar to what Josh and Tim have in mind. This would be somewhat close to the original IE like system, and would be actually still tactical and challenging. What spells get put into the Low/High/Mid slots would require some good balance.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Jaesun

[vrailor]

This is kind of hard to explain (on a forum) but if it were something like:

 

snip

 

 

What do you mean by "choose"? Do mean casting or choosing the spell beforehand.

Sounds good, but i think the whole system eliminates the process of preparing and selecting the spells you will be able to cast. As i said already, let me choose (before the encounter) which low level spells are on cooldown. Using one casting pool for all mid level spells leads to another problem. You will most often only use the spells in the highest spell level because they will most likely be more powerfull.

 

To follow your system:

 

Level x Mage

 

[Low level spells]

Level 1 spells [zap, burning hands, push away*]

Level 2 spells [stun*, bark skin, play dead]

The spell with * can be cast with cooldown of maybe 30 seconds. The selection which has a * is restricted to certain momets, maybe resting. The other spells are cast normally ( or maybe with a higher coolown like 2 minutes). As you level up you slowy got more * to distribute.

 

[Mid level spell]

Level 3 spells [flame arrow, fireball, haste]

Level 4 spells [summon x, spell shield. power word dance]

You can maybe cast five level 3 spells before this spell level is locked for this combat (or maybe only a real long time like 10 minutes). For level 4 spells you can cast four spells.

Maybe with certain perks, feats, whatever you can also set some * for 1 or 2 spells. Then this spells only count as 0.5 spells and can be cast twice.

 

[High level spell]

Using the grimoires you select which spells are available. You can switch grimoires mid-combat but with a big drawback (cooldown, 2 spells less to cast, only half as powerfull).

Level 5 spells [flamestrike, mass haste, lighting ball]

Level 6 spells [meteor, flying sword named after a famous mage, power word suicide]

You can cast maybe two Level 5 spells or one Level 6 spell then this spell range (both spell levels) is locked down until you rest or for x hours.

 

In this way there is still some preparation possible for certain encounters because you have to choose which to cast more often instead of always having the same low level set of spells you can spam. Leads to a more individual set of spells for every mage.

Edited October 7, 2012 by vrailor

[alanschu]

The grimoire's will provide some level of spell preparation too.

[metiman]

Where has Obsidian claimed to be interested in this sort of system? It seems to contradict Tim Cain and Josh Sawyer's recent announcements. Someone have inside connections at Obsidian?

[Arkeus]

Where has Obsidian claimed to be interested in this sort of system? It seems to contradict Tim Cain and Josh Sawyer's recent announcements. Someone have inside connections at Obsidian?

 

you have only seen half of their statements, it seems. Look at this for more.

 

@Jaesun: i think the number of cast spells for low-level in your changes are ridiculously low. A mage that can, at level 11+, cast only one level 1 spell, as well as 3 spells for the whole levels 2-3-4, is useless. The whole point of the system they are putting in place is for making it possible to -not- rest. Your system would force the mage to use all of his spells in each fights and go back to resting for any fights that is not very easy.

 

I much prefer their ways of 'for a level 11 mage, you get your normal numbers of level 1/2/3 spells that you can cast each encounters, and then level 4/5/6 are per rest', as long as you can only rest in very specific locations (inns, temples, never in dungeons).

 

@vrailor: I highly doubt your mage somehow get all the spells at once for the low-level spamming. Like the high-level spell choices will be limited by grimoires, i expect that the spells you can use for low level would still be limited in some ways.

 

As for incantations, it was quite explicit that Wizard will still have them.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Arkeus

[qstoffe]

In general cooldown mechanics has a strong tendency to make combat a lot more "easy-going-adapting-on-the-fly" rather than requiring you to take your time in the beginning of the combat, examining the battlefield, carefully weighing pros and cons against each other for different strategies. I just think that this is something that has been lost in modern RPGs i.e. Dragon Age. Rushing through combat in a "half-assed-manner" simply isn't penalized as it used to be.

 

I've exhausted most of what I wanted to say in the matter. At least I shared my opinion. In any advent I think the combat has a great chance of being more interesting than it was in Dragon Age.

[metiman]

Yes. I was just sent a link to that formspring announcement. I don't know what to think anymore. These guys seem to be constantly changing their minds about what kind of system they want. Or maybe there is some disagreement between Tim and Josh. These contradicory statements are confusing. Josh is the lead designer. So in theory his statements should hold more weight. OTOH, Tim's announcement was part of an official update. Who the hell knows at this point what kind of system they are planning? I do take some comfort in the fact that their ideas seem so incrediblly uncertain and vague. Their commitment to cooldown timers seems absolute, but their committment to high level spell resets during battle or even between battles is apparently not. And now the potential for sleep only spell resets? This site needs better emoticons. I'm at the hair pulling stage.

 

The system described in Josh's Formspring statement seems an awful lot like the 4th edition ruleset, based on what I have heard about it at least. I think it would be illuminating if someone more familiar with 4th Ed. PnP could chime in and compare/contrast the two systems. It basically sounds like a system that uses at will, per encounter, and daily categories. Albeit with a per encounter category that is sometimes more than one set per encounter. I've never played 4th Edition PnP. I'm not sure what to think about it. My main concern with the magic system that has been described so far has been the lack of attrition mechanics in the per encounter or more than one per encounter high level spell reset. Despite their statements it is starting to seem like their plans are simply too chaotic at the moment to really make any firm assumptions about what kind of combat systems they want.

Edited October 7, 2012 by metiman