Over the past few weeks, we've had some new information regard cooldowns and how they will potentially affect end-game skills. Cooldowns, unfortunately, are a necessary evil in order to balance the game. Because Blizzard will be using 5 (possibly more with more classes in the future) resource systems that all function differently, they cannot simply base it off of the resource system, like they did in Diablo 2, where all classes simply used Mana. For example, if Blizzard were to make a top-tier spell cost 100% of the players' resource, a Wizard would be at a much higher advantage than a Barbarian, or a Witch Doctor. This is because the Wizard's resource regenerates automatically, a lot faster than Mana does, meaning they would almost instantly have a full globe again, whereas the WD would potentially need to find some Mana Potions, and the Barbarian would need to engage in battle to regenerate his Rage. A cooldown is potentially the only way to globally balance all classes equally across the board. Also keep in mind, having a cooldown will force players to create various builds to offset the cooldown of their top-tier skill, instead of having everyone in the community just dump all of their points into the top skill and be done. Knowing that cooldowns will be in the game and keeping in mind the fast paced Diablo playstyle, what do you think the maximum length of end-game cooldowns should be, without having players cool down in between battles?
- 5 minutes
- 3 minutes
- 2 minutes (Blizzard's current setting)
- 1 minutes
- 30 seconds
In our previous poll, we wanted to know what ALT option you'd prefer to use while progressing throughout Diablo 3. The majority of you chose to go with the new D3 Default rather than the classic style of play (which came in third). It's interesting to think about the various things we've gotten used to in the previous games that D3 will be changing completely.
But, I was thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to scale the cooldown times based on the number of players in the game. If the cooldown for a particular skill when soloing is 1 minute, then maybe the cooldown should be 3-4 minutes when playing in a 4 person game. If the cooldown remained 1 minute for each player then screen nuke type skills could still be casted 4 times per minute between the 4 of them. If the cooldown times were scaled then people would have to put more thought into casting them, which is the point of cooldowns to begin with. This would also deture people from joining partially filled games and soloing particular areas (some people are really annoyed by people that do this).
The Barb has 3 Level 7 skills. Will casting one of them initiate cooldowns on all 3? Or will each skill have it's own cooldown timer? If they are independent, and have 2 min cooldowns, then theoretically a level 7 skill could be used every 40 seconds.
"None of us are developers, so we can't discuss anything. Ever. It's all worthless."
Is that what you meant?
You have a point on the boss-battles comment! I initially voted 2 minutes, feeling that is an appropriate timer for encouraging the player to be selective about when they use uber-skills against common monsters. However, assuming that the pacing of boss battles is probably pretty intense (a safe assumption, IMO), 1 minute alone is likely to feel like a long time, and 2 minutes seems absurd.
As an idea for a compromise, maybe they become 1 minute timers on boss-fights? Eh, I guess I dont like that idea, it just seems confusing and avoids the issue.
I guess maybe these uber skills should feel like they "cost something extra" beyond waiting 2 minutes -- it rationalizes using them frequently on a boss, but encourages more selective use in general.
Ooooh nice. Even better: 72 minute cooldown! Yay vanilla EQ throwback!
Dude its totally cool to use WoW as a reference. Despite what some haters will say, wow set the standard on things like that in many ways. I agree with u, 1 minute is enough to where it still feels like "faq yea!" every time you launch whatever it is, but is by no means spammable. I'd even say 2 minutes would be okay.
I think the balance blizzard is trying to hit is something that feels powerful that is sort of like an "oh crap" button (is swearing allowed?) with a long enough cooldown where it feels powerful and is fun to cast, but not the kind of thing where you'll run in, use it to clear the room, go afk for a few minutes, come back use it again, etc. I mean, some will use it like that but i think the big deal is that it feels powerful but doesn't turn into something you rely on. Also i'm sure runes will do things like lessen the cooldown at a cost of power.
"Hey guys, level up to a high level and the only difference is, occasionally, you shoot a more powerful attack. You don't have to consider what it does to your resource. Its just out of cooldown, so use it, then spam your basic lvl 1 skill and start again".
Thats how I'm seeing it right now anyway.
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If there is going to be any super uber "oh shit" buttons, then we should be looking at bigger numbers.
Stuff like a minute long imba buffs would require a decent cd, and still have it long enough that a rune to reduce cd would be viable if applicable
on average though, id make them maybe 30s