SWTOR

[Lantyssa]

* I never played CH so I don't honestly know if there was attachments or whatever that could get your CH skills down to 1 second intervals.

CH was more about directing your forces than using cooldowns.  We didn't have skills like other professions.  You told a pet to attack and it then went after your target.  You could tell them to do their specials, but they just went off on their next attack.  There could be a small delay that would be intolerable if firing a weapon, but wasn't so bad from a CH's perspective since they were trying to control the flow of combat.

Damn, man.  That's just cold.

Maybe, but my lack of faith is reassured.

[Fordel]

I can guarantee you, that any such 'permanent' system will be made non-permanent 5 mins after release. It's one of those things people love to THINK they want, but will absolutely hate in reality.

It sounds like grouping in these storyline quests is going to be optional rather than mandatory. So i'd expect to see people only grouping with friends and such when they feel like it rather than go in pick up groups because they mush. That in turn might make this sort of griefing less of a problem...

It could be solo only with 15 confirmation dialogue boxes and a detailed document explaining the choices available, it won't last 5 minutes.

[AutomaticZen]

Dev interview going pretty deep into details of the whole storytelling thing they have planned and whatnot.

Sounds interesting, and indeed somewhat different from the regular approach with every class/character going through the same rat killing motions.

It sounds like unicorns and fairies. 

Sadly, I am not cynical enough yet, and like Lantyssa, I'm getting rather hopeful.  They speak and I see rainbows, but I've been in enough betas to know that rainbows turn out to be painted backdrops frequently.

[Koyasha]

The faster the action and the faster your abilities, the less engaged you can be in the battle itself and the more you've got to mentally translate it into the pure numbers of cooldowns, abilities, HP, mana, and so on.  The slower your (and everyone else's) abilities activate, and the longer it takes people to go from full HP to dead, the more you can think about the battle and see what's going on without having to focus on the next four abilities you're going to use within the following 3 seconds.

I was recently thinking about this when I compared recent games to my EQ bard.  Even the bard, arguably the fastest-paced class in the game since they had to be constantly twisting songs, ran a lot slower than the crack-fueled abilities these days.  In WoW, 3 seconds is considered a relatively slow cast, but even as a bard in EQ my songs took 3 seconds to cast and another 0.5 seconds for the gems to refresh so I could start the next one.  Other classes, most of their spells were anywhere from 3-5 second casting times, with some slow spells going 8+ seconds.

I never once, even on a bard, felt like my focus was entirely on my abilities and my attention was consumed by the next sequence of events.  I could look at my screen, observe the battle, and decide my actions in order to control the battle.  In WoW, I usually feel that way whenever something unusual happens, I tend to have to focus on the next three seconds and my abilities within those seconds without really thinking about anything else, much less coordination or communication.

[Malakili]

The faster the action and the faster your abilities, the less engaged you can be in the battle itself and the more you've got to mentally translate it into the pure numbers of cooldowns, abilities, HP, mana, and so on.  The slower your (and everyone else's) abilities activate, and the longer it takes people to go from full HP to dead, the more you can think about the battle and see what's going on without having to focus on the next four abilities you're going to use within the following 3 seconds.

I was recently thinking about this when I compared recent games to my EQ bard.  Even the bard, arguably the fastest-paced class in the game since they had to be constantly twisting songs, ran a lot slower than the crack-fueled abilities these days.  In WoW, 3 seconds is considered a relatively slow cast, but even as a bard in EQ my songs took 3 seconds to cast and another 0.5 seconds for the gems to refresh so I could start the next one.  Other classes, most of their spells were anywhere from 3-5 second casting times, with some slow spells going 8+ seconds.

I never once, even on a bard, felt like my focus was entirely on my abilities and my attention was consumed by the next sequence of events.  I could look at my screen, observe the battle, and decide my actions in order to control the battle.  In WoW, I usually feel that way whenever something unusual happens, I tend to have to focus on the next three seconds and my abilities within those seconds without really thinking about anything else, much less coordination or communication.

I see where you are coming from here, though I'm not totally sure I agree 100%.  For instance, as a healer in WoW I need to watch raid frames, choose abilities, move out of AoE, etc etc.  All of this is happening at once and in short intervals, but I find that I do in fact need to be worrying about coordination, communication, etc in addition to my ability usage.  Its definitely a learned skill.    Then again, maybe that is why so many people die from standing in fire/lightning/blizzard/random damage in raids, they get so focused in to their ability usage that they get sort of tunnel vision.  The ability usage has to become almost automatic or muscle memory, while you have to keep your attention on your surroundings.

At least, thats what I remember from when I was raiding, its been a while.   Now  This isn't to say that I think WoW does combat especially well, I'm just saying I'm not sure I've had the same experience with it as you.  To me, WoW is actually kind of in a middle zone that is somewhat mediocre.  Anyway, I don't play MMOs for their combat, its uniformly terrible from what I've seen.

[Cadaverine]

The faster the action and the faster your abilities, the less engaged you can be in the battle itself and the more you've got to mentally translate it into the pure numbers of cooldowns, abilities, HP, mana, and so on.  The slower your (and everyone else's) abilities activate, and the longer it takes people to go from full HP to dead, the more you can think about the battle and see what's going on without having to focus on the next four abilities you're going to use within the following 3 seconds.

I was recently thinking about this when I compared recent games to my EQ bard.  Even the bard, arguably the fastest-paced class in the game since they had to be constantly twisting songs, ran a lot slower than the crack-fueled abilities these days.  In WoW, 3 seconds is considered a relatively slow cast, but even as a bard in EQ my songs took 3 seconds to cast and another 0.5 seconds for the gems to refresh so I could start the next one.  Other classes, most of their spells were anywhere from 3-5 second casting times, with some slow spells going 8+ seconds.

I never once, even on a bard, felt like my focus was entirely on my abilities and my attention was consumed by the next sequence of events.  I could look at my screen, observe the battle, and decide my actions in order to control the battle.  In WoW, I usually feel that way whenever something unusual happens, I tend to have to focus on the next three seconds and my abilities within those seconds without really thinking about anything else, much less coordination or communication.

I agree.  After getting bored with the PvE game in EQ, I started a character on Sullon Zek.  I really miss the slower pace of EQ pvp compared to the 3 second kills of WoW, War, et all.  The pace of PvP in AoC is a bit of a step in the right direction, I think.  And it manages to keep the PvE still fairly quick paced, which is nice.

[UnSub]

The faster the action and the faster your abilities, the less engaged you can be in the battle itself and the more you've got to mentally translate it into the pure numbers of cooldowns, abilities, HP, mana, and so on.

If you are mentally translating into pure numbers, you're doing it wrong. Of course, we're moving into tactical vs strategic territory here.

The slower your (and everyone else's) abilities activate, and the longer it takes people to go from full HP to dead, the more you can think about the battle and see what's going on without having to focus on the next four abilities you're going to use within the following 3 seconds.

I've highlighted the bit I think you've got right. It isn't the length of time it takes for you to activate an ability but rather the length of time you stay alive when under attack. Insta-kills (or close to them) especially if you have no recourse (e.g. being mezzed) are more of an issue imo.

Of course, if I ever did a PvP MMO (still waiting for that $30 million to be deposited in my PayPal account  ) it'd have every player on 5 hit points and very easy to kill, plus friendly fire for AOEs. None of this winning because you've got more HP or because you can spam AOEs to 'protect' your tanks.

[Venkman]

The faster the action and the faster your abilities, the less engaged you can be in the battle itself and the more you've got to mentally translate it into the pure numbers of cooldowns, abilities, HP, mana, and so on.  The slower your (and everyone else's) abilities activate, and the longer it takes people to go from full HP to dead, the more you can think about the battle and see what's going on without having to focus on the next four abilities you're going to use within the following 3 seconds.

I was recently thinking about this when I compared recent games to my EQ bard. 

<snip>

I had the same experience as a Bard, but also recognize that preferring this type of experience is what kept the genre small before WoW, and what is still small when you consider just how much an edge case WoW actually is.

And yet translating to pure FPS would alienate the people already here while trying to bring in a potential (and unproven) market that's about now waking up to the sheer horror of the barest hint that Activision might monetize MW2 in some way.

So as usual we're back to not having a magic bullet solution

Faster interaction doesn't always mean faster action. Song twisting is one example, insta-cast spells are another. You can balance a game between requiring constant attention during long term events so players feel engaged in both the immediate and the outcome.

And that is in WoW too. It's just that things all happen faster, befitting of almost all other realtime genres of games making the market WoW wanted to attract.

[Margalis]

I liked the generally slow pace of FFXI combat with relatively few abilities on relatively long timers. It does force you to think more about when to use them, what your teammates are doing and what the enemy is doing.

I find that in games where you have a hotbar of 10 abilities each with a fast cooldown you end up playing wack-a-mole, activating whichever ability just refreshed. Or you get into a wash-rinse-repeat pattern of executing the same ordering over and over again. Either way it's more interactive based on how often you click but only in the "click when the enemy flashes yellow" type of totally uninteresting interaction. Personally rather than press 1,2,3,1,2,3,12,3 I'd rather eat a sandwhich and press something when I really need to rather than just spamming keys to maintain the status quo.

[Koyasha]

It's not just the time it takes to die, though.  If that time is constantly filled with buttonmashing to, as Margalis says, maintain the status quo, that's no good, because you are playing whack-a-mole, trying to get the next ability off just as soon as you're allowed to.  That's the entirety of the playstyle for some classes in some games; hit a button every time you are able to, according to a priority list of which abilities supersede others in importance (based on a usually static determination, with only unusual abilities breaking the 'standard' order), and never being "idle" without having everything on cooldown.

You need time to live to make decisions, but also time in between each decision so you can make decisions rather than memorizing your ability usage to the point of it becoming an automatic response.  That's how real combat is, if I understand it correctly - you're trained and drilled to bypass active decisions and react according to your training to known threats - but it doesn't, I think, make for a fun game.

[Lantyssa]

I liked the generally slow pace of FFXI combat with relatively few abilities on relatively long timers. It does force you to think more about when to use them, what your teammates are doing and what the enemy is doing.

Thirty second cool downs I am okay with.  Two hour ones I am not.  Basically if I have an ability I want to be able to use it every fight and have enough that I have something to do besides auto-attack for minutes at a time.

[Cyrrex]

To be honest, the combat in KOTOR was fairly sucky, and it never really bothered me because that game's strengths were elsewhere.  If they can even moderately improve on combat for SWTOR - we know they will graphically, at least, but if they can make it a little more cinematic - then that will be just fine as far as I am concerned.  They need to play to their strengths, which is primarily storytelling.  That'll be no easy task this time around.

[Cadaverine]

I liked the generally slow pace of FFXI combat with relatively few abilities on relatively long timers. It does force you to think more about when to use them, what your teammates are doing and what the enemy is doing.

Thirty second cool downs I am okay with.  Two hour ones I am not.  Basically if I have an ability I want to be able to use it every fight and have enough that I have something to do besides auto-attack for minutes at a time.

Depends on the ability.  Paladin Lay on Hands full heal type abilities should, at higher levels, be on a longer cooldown.  Depending on the game, having an "oh shit" get out of jail card type ability on a 2 hour cool downseems reasonable.  However, it should realistically scale from 30 mins at lower levels, to 2 hours at higher levels where it's healing 10-20k hp.  The other side of the coin would just be to get rid of asinine abilities like Complete Heal, or LoH, etc.  Otherwise, the end game just becomes a matter of getting enough healer types to rotate a chain of Cheals.  Same for PvP really, though the one with the most healers will win in pvp no matter what, in most cases.

[Fordel]

I'm of the opinion no class ability should have a cool down longer then 5 minutes, ideally, 3 mins or less. If you need to 'balance' it's power with a cool down longer then 5 minutes, then the ability is overpowered. If you 'balance' the class around these long (More then 5 min) duration abilities, then the class is underpowered when they are not available and/or overpowered when they are.


Trying to balance power with scarcity is always a lesson in futility and failure.

[Lantyssa]

What Fordel says pretty much sums up my thoughts on it.

[Ingmar]

Trying to balance power with scarcity is always a lesson in futility and failure.

Actually it works pretty well in 4e D&D (because everyone is designed around access to the same sorts of 'cooldowns' and they aren't directly competing with each other), but you're right for MMO purposes, especially MMO pvp purposes.

[Triforcer]

It would really be awesome if this game had no healers.  Let people use stims on a 2 minute cooldown or something, and maybe let people put points in "improved stim procedure" to get healed for a greater % of their health.  But no more than that.  Or, make PvP really about pulling off combos and allow health to regenerate during a fight automatically to some degree.   

Some would say this takes strategic depth away from a game, but I'm ready for someone to try it.

[Koyasha]

I'm of the opinion no class ability should have a cool down longer then 5 minutes, ideally, 3 mins or less. If you need to 'balance' it's power with a cool down longer then 5 minutes, then the ability is overpowered. If you 'balance' the class around these long (More then 5 min) duration abilities, then the class is underpowered when they are not available and/or overpowered when they are.


Trying to balance power with scarcity is always a lesson in futility and failure.

I see nothing wrong with letting a class be overpowered once in a while.  Balance them without the ability, then go ahead and say, once in a while, we're going to let them do something totally uber and beyond the norm, and that's ok.

And yes, I am completely ready for a no-healer game.  The healer mechanic in general is an ill-concieved piece of nonsense, letting people be constantly healed in-combat.  Quick ways to get healed to full once combat is over are fine, but in-combat healing should be limited to potions/bandaging/stims/whatever, and should probably be available in relatively equal quantities to everyone.

[DLRiley]

Wow, do you guys love backward game design. 2 hour cool downs, 30 minutes acceptable, 30 seconds being fast? Have we learned nothing in 10 years?

[Ingmar]

I see nothing wrong with letting a class be overpowered once in a while.  Balance them without the ability, then go ahead and say, once in a while, we're going to let them do something totally uber and beyond the norm, and that's ok.

In a PVE only context, sure. Having that get out of jail free card is nice for reducing player frustration if you get yourself into a bad situation or whatever. But that sort of thing is what breaks PVP. Consider a situation like DAOC's keep warfare, where the losing side has a reasonably significant time delay before they can get back to the fight. That really devalues a cooldown's balancing effect. Such things also have a tendency to create no-win scenarios, which players seem to hate above all else. Your uber thing is on cooldown while the enemy has his available? Sorry you lose. That sort of thing is basically unacceptable from a PVP balance standpoint in most MMOs.

[tmp]

Wow, do you guys love backward game design. 2 hour cool downs, 30 minutes acceptable, 30 seconds being fast? Have we learned nothing in 10 years?

Well, one of the things learnt was frantic button mashing doesn't automatically equal fun. Doesn't equal lack of fun either, but in itself it says very little.

Plus being able to use certain ability no more often than once per 30 secs... that doesn't tell much about actual pace of the game either. It just means a limit to spamming thunderbolt thunderbolt thunderbolt.

[Fordel]

I see nothing wrong with letting a class be overpowered once in a while.  Balance them without the ability, then go ahead and say, once in a while, we're going to let them do something totally uber and beyond the norm, and that's ok.

In a PVE only context, sure. Having that get out of jail free card is nice for reducing player frustration if you get yourself into a bad situation or whatever. But that sort of thing is what breaks PVP. Consider a situation like DAOC's keep warfare, where the losing side has a reasonably significant time delay before they can get back to the fight. That really devalues a cooldown's balancing effect. Such things also have a tendency to create no-win scenarios, which players seem to hate above all else. Your uber thing is on cooldown while the enemy has his available? Sorry you lose. That sort of thing is basically unacceptable from a PVP balance standpoint in most MMOs.

It's unacceptable in PvE as well. Oh, shield wall is down? Ok everyone come back in 20 mins.

[DLRiley]

Wow, do you guys love backward game design. 2 hour cool downs, 30 minutes acceptable, 30 seconds being fast? Have we learned nothing in 10 years?

Well, one of the things learnt was frantic button mashing doesn't automatically equal fun. Doesn't equal lack of fun either, but in itself it says very little.

Plus being able to use certain ability no more often than once per 30 secs... that doesn't tell much about actual pace of the game either. It just means a limit to spamming thunderbolt thunderbolt thunderbolt.

Just because the balance of the games you waste money on quickly devolve into button mashing contest, doesn't mean having stupidly long cool downs isn't inherently backward thinking.

[Koyasha]

I see nothing wrong with letting a class be overpowered once in a while.  Balance them without the ability, then go ahead and say, once in a while, we're going to let them do something totally uber and beyond the norm, and that's ok.

In a PVE only context, sure. Having that get out of jail free card is nice for reducing player frustration if you get yourself into a bad situation or whatever. But that sort of thing is what breaks PVP. Consider a situation like DAOC's keep warfare, where the losing side has a reasonably significant time delay before they can get back to the fight. That really devalues a cooldown's balancing effect. Such things also have a tendency to create no-win scenarios, which players seem to hate above all else. Your uber thing is on cooldown while the enemy has his available? Sorry you lose. That sort of thing is basically unacceptable from a PVP balance standpoint in most MMOs.

It's unacceptable in PvE as well. Oh, shield wall is down? Ok everyone come back in 20 mins.

I see the PvP problem, although I'm not 100% convinced that's something that should be entirely removed anyway - I can see the frustration at times, but I also think that the fun it adds - and assuming every class has one that can be equally awesome - is sufficient balance for that.  Besides which, even ultimate abilities can usually be countered with proper strategy, even if the strategy is 'run away until it wears off'.  In PvE, though, that's ignoring the part where you balance without the ability.  At no point should that ability be anything more than a special extra thing, never required to defeat the enemies, and then if people want to wait for the ability anyway that's not a problem with it's design, it's their choice.

[UnSub]

It would really be awesome if this game had no healers. 

Some would say this takes strategic depth away from a game, but I'm ready for someone to try it.

Someone is trying it (or at least extremely limited healing powers). A lot of verbage gets spilt in the beta forums about how a lack of healers really hurts the game and reduces the amount of strategic depth in the game.

Personally I disagree - not having healers makes little difference to me, a solo player - but it does impact on a portion of players.

ATM I'm in beta for 4 titles, so I'm not giving anything away other than to say that someone is trying it.

[Triforcer]

SWTOR is in secret beta already???  The mysterious F13 secret beta cabal has scored another victory?  I really wanted in on the ground floor of this particular secret beta cabal  

[UnSub]

SWTOR is in secret beta already???  The mysterious F13 secret beta cabal has scored another victory?  I really wanted in on the ground floor of this particular secret beta cabal  

I'm nowhere near connected enough to get into the sekret SWOR alpha. It's another title currently in beta.

[tmp]

Just because the balance of the games you waste money on quickly devolve into button mashing contest, doesn't mean having stupidly long cool downs isn't inherently backward thinking.

There's nothinig inherently forward nor backward thinking about having certain length on cooldowns per se -- it'll depend on context that's surrounding mechanics. What is exactly so backward thinking about having "stupidly long" cooldowns that you're turning it into an absolute?

[Malakili]

SWTOR is in secret beta already???  The mysterious F13 secret beta cabal has scored another victory?  I really wanted in on the ground floor of this particular secret beta cabal  

I'm nowhere near connected enough to get into the sekret SWOR alpha. It's another title currently in beta.

I think I have a good idea as to what the answer could be, but I'm not saying

[Margalis]

The FFXI Red Mage is centered around an ability with a 10 minute cooldown and it works great. To say that that's "backward" is just silly and closing off an area of game design for no reason.

In particular the ability swaps your HP and MP. So playing Red Mage is very much a resource management game, you try to pace yourself such that just at the ten minute mark you are out of HP, swap your HP and MP and then have ten minutes to refill your HP while slowly draining your MP again.

I would agree that a super attack ability that you can use once every ten minutes sounds a little silly and I have some trouble imagining it working. That does sound like an artifical barrier to keep something from being too powerful. But a utility ability or something interesting like that being on a long timer seems perfectly acceptable to me.

I don't get the attitude that pressing 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3 is somehow the pinnacle of game design. It's like old shooters without built-in rapid-fire. Is rammnig on the fire button 10 times a second really any better than just holding it down? If you want to talk about learning from the past I'd argue that one of the things we should have learned, and that many genres have learned, is that forcing players to ram on buttons without thought is not compelling gameplay but poor control design.

And hell, plenty of action games have abilities on long timers. How often can you activate the Rage of the Titans modes in GOW1 and 2? How often can you perform an Ultra in SF4?

There's nothinig inherently forward nor backward thinking about having certain length on cooldowns per se -- it'll depend on context that's surrounding mechanics.

Exactly.

[ashrik]

SWTOR is in secret beta already???  The mysterious F13 secret beta cabal has scored another victory?  I really wanted in on the ground floor of this particular secret beta cabal  

I'm nowhere near connected enough to get into the sekret SWOR alpha. It's another title currently in beta.

I think I have a good idea as to what the answer could be, but I'm not saying

KA MON

[DayDream]

I mostly agree with Fordel's stance, but I think it's a little poorly defined.

For a PvP fight, I'd say abilities should not have a use per applicable fight ratio less than one.  No cooldowns that aren't likely to be up again the next time you get into a fight.  In a long drawn out fight, you want those cooldowns to refresh.

It's all about spikes in gameplay.  I think people enjoy close fights the most, where there's a back-and-forth, and both players actually have a chance at winning.  With how human psychology works, I think negative spikes in gameplay have much more value than positive spikes.  In other words, a fight with no hope for you winning usually impacts your play experience more than a fight you cannot lose.

[Fordel]

The FFXI Red Mage is centered around an ability with a 10 minute cooldown and it works great. To say that that's "backward" is just silly and closing off an area of game design for no reason.

In particular the ability swaps your HP and MP. So playing Red Mage is very much a resource management game, you try to pace yourself such that just at the ten minute mark you are out of HP, swap your HP and MP and then have ten minutes to refill your HP while slowly draining your MP again.

WoW has a similar class, it's called a Warlock, except of flipping Health/Mana completely every 10 mins, they can flip smaller chunks of their health into mana at will.

[Koyasha]

The FFXI Red Mage is centered around an ability with a 10 minute cooldown and it works great. To say that that's "backward" is just silly and closing off an area of game design for no reason.

In particular the ability swaps your HP and MP. So playing Red Mage is very much a resource management game, you try to pace yourself such that just at the ten minute mark you are out of HP, swap your HP and MP and then have ten minutes to refill your HP while slowly draining your MP again.

WoW has a similar class, it's called a Warlock, except of flipping Health/Mana completely every 10 mins, they can flip smaller chunks of their health into mana at will.

No, it doesn't.  It has a class with an ability that bears almost no resemblance to Convert except in the mechanics of being able to transform health into mana, but has wholly different tactical and strategic considerations as to the use of the ability since the classes are absolutely nothing alike.  This is like noting that apples and oranges both have seeds, thus they are similar.

The 10 minute cooldown on that ability shapes much of a red mage's tactics and strategy, if it could be done in smaller chunks, at will, most of that strategy would be gone since the only thing the red mage would have to worry about is having enough time to transform health to mana before the mana is urgently needed, as opposed to having to manage your mana expenditure/intake for ten minutes to make sure you don't run out of mana after only 8 minutes.  If it could be done at will you'd only have to consider the next 30 seconds or so, rather than the next ten minutes.  It would also take away the gear balancing act red mages do, which is to try to ensure their health is always just slightly higher than their mana so that Convert gives them a full mana bar.

[Lantyssa]

Dude!  That sounds awesome!