Editorial Gamasutra against Ability Cooldowns

[Average Manatee]

Cooldowns are merely another dimension to take into account when planning a build, along with time to cast/use, energy usage, charge time, duration, damage, etc. Stop playing games with shitty combat and you won't have a problem. This article might as well be retitled "Shitty games are shitty", because that's the argument it's making.

 

[DraQ]

After seeing some reviews of DA2, I didn't bother. I thought DA was merely "okay" with nothing really driving me to finish it. I think I still have it installed and planned on finishing it for DA2's release. However, seeing videos of DA2's gameplay and watching some video reviews, I passed on it. Even the positive reviews of it made me think it was going to be something I wouldn't like.

I'm just not ready to seal the fate of a mechanic for a few shoddy implementations.

Ok, I'll bite:

How would implement cooldowns so that they would work right, how would you justify cooldowns as generic mechanics so that they would make sense and what is it that cooldowns can do what other mechanics don't?

 

[Jaesun]

A proper cRPG would never use cooldowns.

I win the thread.