Editorial Gamasutra against Ability Cooldowns

[villain of the story]

They aren't trying to MIRROR real-life mechanics, they try to model it. And they cannot create a proper model of something that they cannot observe and understand. You cannot simplify something that doesn't exist. Magic is good to write about in books, not to implement inside virtual environments.

Also, magic is lame.

o_O
Ignore +1
Enjoy the butthurt.

 

[DraQ]

I think some of the posters don't quite get it.

First, reloading a weapon isn't quite cooldown - it can be initiated at will, which is often important with multi-shot weapons and it doesn't go in the background (as some hove observed), maybe outside of some ancient games where you had single reloadable weapon in whole arsenal and it was mostly a gimmick (see automag in Unreal) and outside of HL2 which is hardly stellar in terms of its firearm mechanics. Even in those games this wasn't terribly exploitable, as switching weapons took time and there was little no point to switch weapons from what was currently preferable due to mechanical or ammo considerations.

Second, the problem isn't using something like cooldowns where it evidently makes sense, it's slapping the timer on everything and calling it a day. If you have something that should logically work like cooldown, then, by all means make it work like one. If it shouldn't logically work like a cooldown, then fucking don't make it do that.

Third, if you need some time management mechanics, then it's usually far better to put this delay *before* using the ability, not after. Most stuff person can do takes time, casting magic is usually portrayed as using complex rituals that take time and so on. It makes little sense to just fire off your spell, then sit on your ass twiddling your thumbs because the timer says so. It makes a lot of sense to actually spend time *casting* this spell, then be able to start cast it again immediately after as long as your resources allow, because why the fuck not?
Additionally, introducing pre-ability delay allows you to make it far more of a factor than some cooldown that may well go into effect after your enemy is dead. For starters, the enemy may attack you interrupting whatever you do, or at least causing shitload of damage. For this reason some abilities, even weakish and inefficient may be preferable in some situations, if only because they cast fast and will actually have chance to go off without being disrupted. Additionally, other abilities, not necessarily useful in their own right may come into play to buy caster some time before he can launch his nuke. And there might also be abilities to counter those.

Fourth, cooldown mechanics, right from its start in hazy early nineties (LoL1, etc.) has been resembling QTE. There is no denying that and it makes for some mightily shitty combat. If all abilities are on separate cooldowns then it makes sense to just spam whatever is available ATM. If LoL1 didn't have it's particular kind of charm, not without help of musics and pretty pixel art, then it would be a horrible piece of turd, far worse than fucking oblivious.

Fifth, cooldowns are probably the worst way to introduce any additional complexity to your combat skill use. Not only do they work poorly in this regard, but they tend to not make sense and supplant far better alternatives.

For instance Call of the Ancients literally calls down the four barbarian ancients to fight alongside you. How would that work if it was spammable?​

​

That's actually a no brainer.

You logically can't call multiple copies of ancients at once, so spamming would only accomplish unsummoning and resummoning, terminating any actions of those summons and resetting their position - why would *anyone* spam that?

 

[Johannes]

For instance Call of the Ancients literally calls down the four barbarian ancients to fight alongside you. How would that work if it was spammable?​

That's actually a no brainer.

You logically can't call multiple copies of ancients at once, so spamming would only accomplish unsummoning and resummoning, terminating any actions of those summons and resetting their position - why would *anyone* spam that?

So when cooldown sucks, you go out and seek a way to get a mechanically identical solution, which doesn't suck cause hey, it's obviously not a cooldown!

 

[Infinitron]

So when cooldown sucks, you go out and seek a way to get a mechanically identical solution, which doesn't suck cause hey, it's obviously not a cooldown!

How is that mechanically identical?

 

[Johannes]

It has the same end effect - ie. you won't use the ability when it's in effect.

 

[DraQ]

It has the same end effect - ie. you won't use the ability when it's in effect.

How is it the same?

You can physically use the ability at any point, whether it's on or off, it's just that there is usually no point to using it again when it's active (though in some rare instances, like when one of your summoned allies is trapped, you might wish to re-cast).

As for balancing, there are plenty options if just hefty mana cost is not enough - stop mana/HP regen while the ability is active, introduce continuous mana/HP drain while the ability is in effect, make it aura-like and disallow other aura-like abilities to be active at the same time, etc.

Cooldowns are the last recourse of the incompetent and the lazy.

 

[Bulba]

You logically can't call multiple copies of ancients at once, so spamming would only accomplish unsummoning and resummoning, terminating any actions of those summons and resetting their position - why would *anyone* spam that?

I think the idia behind that skill is a bit different. They will let you summon them for 30 sec with a cooldown of 10 min or so... your solution seems like a spam to them.
Personaly I hate a cooldown system because it encoroges people to hit and run. Battles become boaring cast the spell and run away from monster for the next 2 min than recast and repeat. Take this barb skill for example - now I will be able to cast it and kill 10 monsters than sit around for 10 min move into new area and cast it again... how shit is that?

 

[DraQ]

You logically can't call multiple copies of ancients at once, so spamming would only accomplish unsummoning and resummoning, terminating any actions of those summons and resetting their position - why would *anyone* spam that?

I think the idia behind that skill is a bit different. They will let you summon them for 30 sec with a cooldown of 10 min or so... your solution seems like a spam to them.
Personaly I hate a cooldown system because it encoroges people to hit and run. Battles become boaring cast the spell and run away from monster for the next 2 min than recast and repeat. Take this barb skill for example - now I will be able to cast it and kill 10 monsters than sit around for 10 min move into new area and cast it again... how shit is that?

So their fix involves retaining spam from game's PoV, but punctuating it with 10' periods of boredom on player's end?

 

[hiver]

I think some of the posters don't quite get it.

 

[Telengard]

It's not attaching cooldowns to magic that offends the most, it's attaching cooldowns to everything. Things like swordplay.

My warrior can run up and do a level 2 whirlwind attack, hitting everyone around him, but then can't perform that maneuver again for 30 seconds, like he forgot how to do it or something.

Ah, he must be too tired to perform the attack again and has to rest up. But, no, he can use his level three attack, which arguably would require more stamina to perform, to jump up into the air, point his sword down, and smash down sword-first into the earth, creating a wave of force that knocks everyone back for massive damage (even though technically the only thing his sword cut was the earth). But that's not all, because then he can run up and do double-slash 3 times, his level 1 power, damaging an enemy to either side of him each time it is used.

After that, all his attacks are in cooldown, so he can't do any more damage for a while. So he must now be too tired to fight, right? Well, maybe, but he doesn't have any trouble running around like a maniac, doing backflips and siderolls to avoid the enemy, which would probably be pretty tiring. So, maybe it's just his arms that are too tired to swing a sword? Only, he doesn't have any trouble doing an infinite number of backflips, which is arguably even harder on the arms.

And then, after running around like a maniac for a while, the cooldown timer on his level 3 attack comes Ready, and at last my warrior can swing his sword again. Of course he's been running and flipping around this whole time, so how did he "rest?"

And why does the level 3, most powerful attack finish its cooldown first? Because he's wearing his superior level 3 cooldown hat.

There's no issue with injecting a bunch of cooldowns into an RPG, as long as you don't mind injecting all of the stupid that naturally comes with it.

 

[Johannes]

It has the same end effect - ie. you won't use the ability when it's in effect.

How is it the same?

You can physically use the ability at any point, whether it's on or off, it's just that there is usually no point to using it again when it's active (though in some rare instances, like when one of your summoned allies is trapped, you might wish to re-cast).

It's the same because 95% of the time it makes you use it in exactly the same way as a cooldown would. Sure, in some scenario it might make sense to recast it to reposition them. But other than that rare scenario, being unable to cast it and making casting it nigh useless for a period, have the same end effect.
If the cooldown is similar in length to the effects length, that is.

So is your problem with cooldowns the actual gameplay, or just that it doesn't make enough sense from a simulationist perspective?

As for balancing, there are plenty options if just hefty mana cost is not enough - stop mana/HP regen while the ability is active, introduce continuous mana/HP drain while the ability is in effect, make it aura-like and disallow other aura-like abilities to be active at the same time, etc.

And all of these is possible to have together with a cooldown, too.

 

[DraQ]

And all of these is possible to have together with a cooldown, too.

It's also possible to have a fine meal together with a shit sandwich - but would you want that?

 

[Johannes]

derp

 

[crazyirish]

I guess another problem some people have is that they have seen so few systems that don't use cooldowns. I'm also a PnP dork, and if you look at some of the various indie game systems that have come out you can see some ideas that are so much better (And still give loads of tactical options to different player builds). Of course not all of those would translate into a CRPG. But say Riddle of Steel in a turnbased RPG? Pure awesome.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

My 2 cents.

1) The problem seems to be that cooldowns are the *only* tactical aspect of the combat system in many games. At least lately. This makes them boring and exploitable, but not non-intuitive or retarded. In fact many hybrid combinations can be implemented on top of them. Like for example in TCoS:

They do add a fairly nice tactical aspect of the game. They also allow the developer to put in UBER abilities and balance them out with an exceptionally long cool down. Do I use my NUKE THE SCREEN ability now or do I save it just in case things get worse? It not only forces the players to use a variety of attacks, but think about when they're going to use them. It also makes the player think about using an attack now which may not work as well against the current target versus saving the attack against something it will work well on.

3) Players will spam the shit of their best spell with cooldowns or not, because it makes sense. Limit the amount of resources (mana, gems, scrolls) or make them expensive/rare/unique and the spamming will end. Basically the player will have to find efficient ways to accomplish his goal and The Codex will live happily ever after.

A lot of games use a combination of the two. You have energy/mana/special sauce that you have which drives the powers, but you also have cooldowns. Really, a cool down is just like using mana minus the spam of one thing. It's almost like waiting for mana to regenerate per ability.

A fourth thing that it does is it allows another way for the player to improve his character, either by item or skill or both. A lower ability character may not have the machismo to fire off that FIREBALL OF GLORY spell as often as he'd like. However, as he advances, he can put points in to the skill that drives that power and drop that cooldown some. Likewise, it gives the developers another thing they can toss on an item to make players try to find that item.

 

[Johannes]

Oh and for people who are complaining about cooldowns being unrealistic? Let's say that magic is always used from items (or at least the kind of magic with cooldowns is) - you have your fireball ring, lightning bolt ring, frostbolt ring, and so on... You can invoke them at will otherwise but they need to recharge for a moment before being reused. Now you've got a perfectly sensible explanation for cooldowns, as far as plausibility of magic systems go anyway.

 

[DraQ]

They do add a fairly nice tactical aspect of the game. They also allow the developer to put in UBER abilities and balance them out with an exceptionally long cool down. Do I use my NUKE THE SCREEN ability now or do I save it just in case things get worse? It not only forces the players to use a variety of attacks, but think about when they're going to use them. It also makes the player think about using an attack now which may not work as well against the current target versus saving the attack against something it will work well on.

Not really, because player can just wait the exceptionally long cooldown out in between battles.

 

[zeitgeist]

WoW players know that after some time even their most epic ability is just "use cooldowns", it's your most powerfull ability and there is no trade of, you'll use it everywhere and get bored because 60 seconds later you'll use it again, there is little strategy or even emotion anymore.

This is not at all a fault of the cooldown concept as such, it is a fault of horribly uninspired and repetitive encounters, combat and quests, and overall gameplay and gameworld design which bring said mechanics to the front instead of hiding them and dressing them up as much as possible.

Every RPG can be played just as mechanically and emotionlessly as WoW raids. It's just that the good ones can (sometimes) convince you not to*.

* - But then again, that would be LARPing, wouldn't it.

 

[DraQ]

Oh and for people who are complaining about cooldowns being unrealistic? Let's say that magic is always used from items (or at least the kind of magic with cooldowns is) - you have your fireball ring, lightning bolt ring, frostbolt ring, and so on... You can invoke them at will otherwise but they need to recharge for a moment before being reused. Now you've got a perfectly sensible explanation for cooldowns, as far as plausibility of magic systems go anyway.

What about non-magical abilities, say "thousand strikes" or whatever?

The problem of what you're trying to suggest is that it's only applicable to narrow class of mechanics, while cooldowns themselves are broadly applied to everything lately.

 

[Johannes]

Oh and for people who are complaining about cooldowns being unrealistic? Let's say that magic is always used from items (or at least the kind of magic with cooldowns is) - you have your fireball ring, lightning bolt ring, frostbolt ring, and so on... You can invoke them at will otherwise but they need to recharge for a moment before being reused. Now you've got a perfectly sensible explanation for cooldowns, as far as plausibility of magic systems go anyway.

What about non-magical abilities, say "thousand strikes" or whatever?

The problem of what you're trying to suggest is that it's only applicable to narrow class of mechanics, while cooldowns themselves are broadly applied to everything lately.

The point was more about how it's relatively easy to find sound explanations for whatever actual mechanics you want. To the people who keep crying about how cooldowns don't make sense and are bad for that reason.

 

[DraQ]

Oh and for people who are complaining about cooldowns being unrealistic? Let's say that magic is always used from items (or at least the kind of magic with cooldowns is) - you have your fireball ring, lightning bolt ring, frostbolt ring, and so on... You can invoke them at will otherwise but they need to recharge for a moment before being reused. Now you've got a perfectly sensible explanation for cooldowns, as far as plausibility of magic systems go anyway.

What about non-magical abilities, say "thousand strikes" or whatever?

The problem of what you're trying to suggest is that it's only applicable to narrow class of mechanics, while cooldowns themselves are broadly applied to everything lately.

The point was more about how it's relatively easy to find sound explanations for whatever actual mechanics you want. To the people who keep crying about how cooldowns don't make sense and are bad for that reason.

Well, the problem is that you can always drill deeper - for example, if all spells are on items, why not carry the spares and cycle? This was the main problem with MW enchantments, BTW.

Why can't you have an item with more than one charge? And so on.

 

[Johannes]

Those questions are easily answered, but yeah you can always come up with new unexplained stuff. But that's not cooldown-specific at all, same goes for any (magic) system.

 

[felipepepe]

Every RPG can be played just as mechanically and emotionlessly as WoW raids. It's just that the good ones can (sometimes) convince you not to*.

* - But then again, that would be LARPing, wouldn't it.

Agreed, I can play Baldurs Gate spamming fireballs and magic missles and resting everywhere, but doing that with high level magic would be harder...and can you really play using Caco Fiend or Stop Time every battle? And by doing that the battle would be 10x easier? That's a huge difference, WoW abilities are all "deal damage" or "make you deal more damage", you have just one purpose, DPS, and powerfull abilites are 100% better and more efficient at that. They are weaker, since all they do is be more efficient, not completly change the battle and bend the rules.

 

[crazyirish]

Oh and for people who are complaining about cooldowns being unrealistic? Let's say that magic is always used from items (or at least the kind of magic with cooldowns is) - you have your fireball ring, lightning bolt ring, frostbolt ring, and so on... You can invoke them at will otherwise but they need to recharge for a moment before being reused. Now you've got a perfectly sensible explanation for cooldowns, as far as plausibility of magic systems go anyway.

There's a difference between being unrealistic and being a poor method of regulation in the context of an ability. Can it make sense for a magic item? Sure. Does it make sense for every ability that every character has? Or rather, are there better options? The best rpg systems (hell systems for ANY game) use mechanics that reinforce their basic themes. Thief uses a gem of varying degrees of brightness to show how well hidden you are. Could they have used a percentile instead? Sure. It would arguably provide a finer feedback. But it sure would've looked fucking out of place.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Not really, because player can just wait the exceptionally long cooldown out in between battles.

You might do that for a 3 minute cool down, but what about 5 minutes, 10 minutes, etc? Some of those cooldowns in games are pretty long. Often times, you don't have the time to just sit and wait for those things to recharge. I've been in fights with 3 minute cool downs, watching the cool down and my health, wondering which one will run out first. And yeah, I regretting using the ability at the wrong time.

There's a difference between being unrealistic and being a poor method of regulation in the context of an ability. Can it make sense for a magic item? Sure. Does it make sense for every ability that every character has? Or rather, are there better options? The best rpg systems (hell systems for ANY game) use mechanics that reinforce their basic themes.

Not just magic games use it. Some games use it for super powers and gadgets. It's just a game construct to limit how often people do a particular thing.