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.
1 minute should be enough. You will most likley not be in a single battle for more than a minute unless its a boss battle. Either that or 45 seconds.
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I think blizzard knows best what setting is optimal. And it makes sense that the über l33t end-game skills have long cooldowns and cannot be spammable :). So i agree with Blizzard and answered with 2 minutes.
Although I strongly argued for Blizzards ability to test out the proper length of time, I voted here for 1 min. I did this primarily because as an action based game and after watching some of the pvp matches more critically I have the gut feeling that 1 min. is plenty long enough especially for non durations skills. For duration skills, I usually count the cool-down to be after the effect expires anyway, so while they may count down from 2 min. the cool-down in my mind is significantly shorter. Then again what do I know!
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If that made sense to you, Bravo! I think I even confused myself...
Like everyone else is saying, 2 minutes sounds good to me, Blizz knows what they're doing.
Further, ~2 minute ultimate cooldowns in games like League are really great for making you use them smartly, without being too restrictive as to make you never want to blow the CD.
With the relatively fast pace that combat always is supposed to have, I think anything too long makes a skill into something people will almost never use unless they absolutely have to. There is just an inherent fear that if they use it on something rather trivial, that immediately something extremely dangerous will appear and they will not have their skill ready for another 4 or 5 minutes. The only choices are to either try to fight without it, or run away and sit there waiting for nothing but your skill to come back up. While the former might be slightly exciting if you like play softcore and push yourself, the latter is really bad from almost any perspective.
Since I've not played anything in the way of Diablo 3 so far, I'm going to just vote with the Blizzard default until I have some feeling from experience as to if I think it's alright or not.
In my opinion I would have to say that a one minute cooldown on the powerful end tier skills would be appropriate. A thirty second cooldown would feel great on some of the stronger mid tier skills and weaker high tier skills.
I would have to say no longer than ten seconds on some of the weaker mid tier and stronger low tier skills. Beyond that the weakest of the low tier skills should definitely have no cooldown at all.
Having these short but not too restrictive cooldowns would keep combat fast paced and fun. I think a two minute cooldown would feel rather long in a game like Diablo.
Remember that many of the high tier skills consists of a summon or buff that lasts for X amount of time. Not all of course, but for such skills I think it makes sense that the cooldown is a tad bit longer since the "effective" cooldown will only be between when the skill wears off until it's up again. I voted for 3 min as a max limit, although that doesn't mean I want all the top tier skills to have such a long cooldown, but for some more powerful, longer lasting skills it makes sense.
Of course they could make it so that the cooldown of such skills starts counting only when the effect ends, in which case the cooldown should be lowered, but that feels a bit unintuitive.
I say 1 min for a very simple reason. This is a faster paced game than say WoW (yes, yes I made a WoW reference). Instead of long drawn out fight you have map up the mob type fights most the time. I know we don't know much about D3 bosses but you still have to scale them for the rest of the game too. 1 min is long enough to keep spaming out and short enough that you bother with using it at all.
The maximum cooldown? No one here is a developer, no one here knows the millions of rune effects, and no one here is balancing the game. It makes sense for a powerful Call of the Ancients to have a 3-minute cooldown, and for a skill like Ignore pain to have a 1 minute cooldown. Or 45 seconds. Or 30 seconds. Literally, all answers are completely baseless.
I'm normally not one to criticize directly, but this poll defies what a poll should be; the data collected from the poll has no value.
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I put 5 minutes. Hell, make it 10. I trust Blizzard has their reasons for cooldowns, and I'll judge the decision when I get my hands on the game and am at level 30 when it will start to matter.
I think there's still this mentality that a long cooldown is being put on a weak ability.
If the cooldown is more than 10 seconds, it's gonna be a strong ability. Two minutes, and it's going to be something ridiculous. This isn't a frozen orb we're talking about here. We're talking about an ability that shoots a ring of frozen orbs and lightning in every direction for 10 seconds.
POWERFUL SHIT.
There will still be tons of abilities on low CDs that can be spammed or used every few seconds.
The maximum cooldown? No one here is a developer, no one here knows the millions of rune effects, and no one here is balancing the game. It makes sense for a powerful Call of the Ancients to have a 3-minute cooldown, and for a skill like Ignore pain to have a 1 minute cooldown. Or 45 seconds. Or 30 seconds. Literally, all answers are completely baseless.
I'm normally not one to criticize directly, but this poll defies what a poll should be; the data collected from the poll has no value.
This poll is 'where would you like to click today?' the poll.
The maximum cooldown? No one here is a developer, no one here knows the millions of rune effects, and no one here is balancing the game. It makes sense for a powerful Call of the Ancients to have a 3-minute cooldown, and for a skill like Ignore pain to have a 1 minute cooldown. Or 45 seconds. Or 30 seconds. Literally, all answers are completely baseless.
I'm normally not one to criticize directly, but this poll defies what a poll should be; the data collected from the poll has no value.
This poll is 'where would you like to click today?' the poll.
LOL, too true!
That is all.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If that made sense to you, Bravo! I think I even confused myself...
I voted 2 minutes because top-end spells shouldn't be spammable or often used especially in PvP. I believe that it should be 2 minutes at minimum.
You may argue that PvP fights won't last more than a minute. But, you are wrong. Competitive PvP is what matters, and is where the balance of all classes should be focused. And we all know that in competitive PvP, most, if not all battles (unless mistakes happen), last much much longer than the one minute many people seem to believe.
Just look at equally geared, skilled and motivated players in any arena type match or battle. In most cases those matches or battles last a long time. Especially when both parties play well.
Secondly, when a very powerful end-game spell is spammed, all the fun is taken away and battles are extremely short. Take the spam away, and the fun is put back in to the game and we're forced to throw the cookie cutter away and use our creativity to shape our characters.
If you are looking for game-play that involves spamming the most powerful spells and short fights, then perhaps you should stick to Diablo II or try out some FPSs.
Another point of view is in PvE or PvM. Most fights will be short (excluding boss fights) no matter what since most monsters or mobs are basically "trash mobs". It'd be crazy if every monster in D3 took 5 minutes to kill.
So with that said, there's no need for top-end spells to be spammed in intervals shorter than 2 minutes.
If they were, the game would simply be too easy and too fast paced.
With Boss fights, the same holds true. If everyone were spamming their top-end spells, it wouldn't be much of a boss fight, now would it? With greater than 2 minute cooldowns, we're forced to work as a team and use MORE of our abilities to kill the boss. Which, in my opinion, would make for a much better accomplishment rather than how bosses are now in Diablo II.
Killing a boss or even killing another player in Diablo II... yeah, is presently in no way at all a great feat. And I'm sure most would agree with me on that one. This is what they want to change in Diablo 3. And I am all for it.
Voted 5 minutes because I don't think there should be a maximum cooldown. If a skill is ultra powerful, it should have an appropriately long cooldown. I'd be perfectly fine with screen clearing skills as long as you have to be smart about using them because of their cooldown, and longer cooldowns just make it so that you have to be more and more intelligent with when to use the skill.
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)
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.
Diablo III Analyst
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If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
Monk > Wizard > Barbarian > Demon Hunter > Witch Doctor
Further, ~2 minute ultimate cooldowns in games like League are really great for making you use them smartly, without being too restrictive as to make you never want to blow the CD.
Since I've not played anything in the way of Diablo 3 so far, I'm going to just vote with the Blizzard default until I have some feeling from experience as to if I think it's alright or not.
I would have to say no longer than ten seconds on some of the weaker mid tier and stronger low tier skills. Beyond that the weakest of the low tier skills should definitely have no cooldown at all.
Having these short but not too restrictive cooldowns would keep combat fast paced and fun. I think a two minute cooldown would feel rather long in a game like Diablo.
Of course they could make it so that the cooldown of such skills starts counting only when the effect ends, in which case the cooldown should be lowered, but that feels a bit unintuitive.
I'm normally not one to criticize directly, but this poll defies what a poll should be; the data collected from the poll has no value.
If the cooldown is more than 10 seconds, it's gonna be a strong ability. Two minutes, and it's going to be something ridiculous. This isn't a frozen orb we're talking about here. We're talking about an ability that shoots a ring of frozen orbs and lightning in every direction for 10 seconds.
POWERFUL SHIT.
There will still be tons of abilities on low CDs that can be spammed or used every few seconds.
Variety is good.
This poll is 'where would you like to click today?' the poll.
LOL, too true!
That is all.
You may argue that PvP fights won't last more than a minute. But, you are wrong. Competitive PvP is what matters, and is where the balance of all classes should be focused. And we all know that in competitive PvP, most, if not all battles (unless mistakes happen), last much much longer than the one minute many people seem to believe.
Just look at equally geared, skilled and motivated players in any arena type match or battle. In most cases those matches or battles last a long time. Especially when both parties play well.
Secondly, when a very powerful end-game spell is spammed, all the fun is taken away and battles are extremely short. Take the spam away, and the fun is put back in to the game and we're forced to throw the cookie cutter away and use our creativity to shape our characters.
If you are looking for game-play that involves spamming the most powerful spells and short fights, then perhaps you should stick to Diablo II or try out some FPSs.
Another point of view is in PvE or PvM. Most fights will be short (excluding boss fights) no matter what since most monsters or mobs are basically "trash mobs". It'd be crazy if every monster in D3 took 5 minutes to kill.
So with that said, there's no need for top-end spells to be spammed in intervals shorter than 2 minutes.
If they were, the game would simply be too easy and too fast paced.
With Boss fights, the same holds true. If everyone were spamming their top-end spells, it wouldn't be much of a boss fight, now would it? With greater than 2 minute cooldowns, we're forced to work as a team and use MORE of our abilities to kill the boss. Which, in my opinion, would make for a much better accomplishment rather than how bosses are now in Diablo II.
Killing a boss or even killing another player in Diablo II... yeah, is presently in no way at all a great feat. And I'm sure most would agree with me on that one. This is what they want to change in Diablo 3. And I am all for it.
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