So I am currently writing an article about how ability cooldown is a great innovation in gameplay. The first time I encountered this concept (although I know it's not the first implementation) was Warcraft 3. Now it's true that game had a mana system as well as a cool down system, but since then I feel like I see cooldowns all over.
Mass effect is my next first hand experience with them, and in Mass effect I absolutely love it. I get to spam all my abilities and never worry about running out.
I remember games like the X-men arcade game where doing the very move that made your mutant special would deal him damage. So you never wanted to do it. That is stupid. I understand that is just an arcade thing to suck money out of you, but it followed gaming tot he consoles too. Final Fight and Streets of rage and tons of other beat-em-ups had a "super move" which did damage to you.
Also I feel that cooldowns have a large amount of design space compared to a energy or self-damage system.
Please give me your thoughts, hopefully someone can give me an earlier implementation of cooldown as well as some other alternative methods of managing special moves.
Perhaps you could explain what you mean by "ability cooldown" and what makes it so special.
When you use a special ability, it takes a while for you to be able to use it again. That way you can't be constantly casting Hadouken in Street Fig... Hey wait a minute!
Charging health for special abilities is actually a fairly standard feature of beat-em-ups in general. It introduces some choice in using them. If you just have a standard cooldown, then you basically use the ability as soon as the cooldown expires for some free damage; if you have to pay health, then you only use the ability when you really need it (i.e. when not using it would mean taking even more damage from enemy attacks).
Streets of Rage 3 combined the two approaches: you have a special bar that slowly fills. When you use the special bar, it empties and you take damage based on how full it was -- completely full and you took no damage. Streets of Rage 2 just charged you health when you used the ability straight up. In either case you could spam specials until running out of health if you really felt like it. Skilled players could then take down some bosses shockingly quickly (especially with Max vs. blocking enemies, though that's arguably a glitch), but it's risky play since you run dangerously low on health to do so.
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I have to wonder what the first game to implement cooldowns that indicated when the ability was ready again. The first I can think of is Diablo, but I'm sure something before that had it. Any ideas?
As noted, Streets of Rage 3 had a bar that slowly filled which, when full, would allow you to use your special at no cost of health. That counts as notification of a cooldown completing in my book. I'm sure there are earlier examples too. Heck, if you wanted to be pedantic, recovery animations count as cooldowns before you can do things; for example, when the prince in Prince of Persia is in his landing animation, he cannot jump again until it completes. That counts as a cooldown for the jumping ability; it's just handled very organically instead of having a bar to fill or an icon turning red.
(Super Mario Galaxy and LoZ Twilight Princess do similar things with animations indicating when cooldowns are complete -- after using a spin attack the lumia spins under Mario's hat in SMG, and a spark travels along Link's sword in LoZTP. These are obviously more recent examples though)
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Diablo doesn't have ability cooldowns, Dialo 1 and 2 both use a straight mana system. I didn't know that about streets of rage 3 and I am happy to hear that. Of course in my article I will explain in detail what an ability cooldown is but if anyone doesn't know here:
After using an ability you are limited from using it again for a set amount of time. But it costs you nothing else otherwise. So in mass effect for example you can use the ability "push" (just like the jedi's force push) once every 6 seconds or so without fail. The time can vary based on different factors to allow for a fair amount of design space.
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VirtualAlex wrote:
Diablo doesn't have ability cooldowns, Dialo 1 and 2 both use a straight mana system. I didn't know that about streets of rage 3 and I am happy to hear that. Of course in my article I will explain in detail what an ability cooldown is but if anyone doesn't know here:
After using an ability you are limited from using it again for a set amount of time. But it costs you nothing else otherwise. So in mass effect for example you can use the ability "push" (just like the jedi's force push) once every 6 seconds or so without fail. The time can vary based on different factors to allow for a fair amount of design space.
Would a reloading animation in a FPS count as a cooldown? (Although some FPSs implement literal cooldowns for some weapons, where the weapon heats up with usage.)
Diablo 2 does have ability cooldowns on some abilities -- you can't spam Firewall at your max casting speed, for example. I don't think D1 does though.
Your definition of cooldown is flawed. Cooldowns are simply timers that, until they expire, prevent an ability from being used (or make it more expensive, etc.). You can associate any other cost with using the ability that you like. In D2 there is a mana cost; in SoR3 there is a health cost. Try going to a D2 forum and telling everyone there that there are no cooldowns in the game; you'll get laughed out of town.
You're going to need to make very certain you know what you're talking about if you plan to write anything approaching an authoritative work. If you want to talk about "abilities that have cooldowns but no other cost" then you'll have to specify that.
Warp: IMO it would, especially for single-shot weapons.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I was reading about Star Fire (because I was curious what the first arcade game with a high score chart was after Warp commented on it) and it implements a cool down period (last sentence in the first paragraph of this section):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fire#Gameplay
I imagine there are even older games that have something like that too.
Well I didn't mean to imply that it CAN'T involve other costs. But an "ability cooldown" in and of itself will not include other costs unless the game system includes additional costs. Which is fine, I will be talking about those as well, which is they work in WoW and most of MMRPGS that I have seen.
I am not familiar with the inner workings of Diablo. From a player perspective, your abilities cost mana. You are limited by a casting speed as well, which can be classified as cooldown, but I would equate diablo with shooting a firearm in a shooting game. Recoil and reload technically are cooldowns to using the "power" again. However it isn't in the definition of cooldown I am thinking about.
Defining and ability cool down accurately is also something I would enjoy some help with. The concept of cooldown I am talking about means that the main limiting factor of using a skill is the time it takes to recharge. Usually this is clearly stated in-game as part of the ability "Singularity, Damage 500, Cooldown 9 seconds" It is not an under the hood element, but a statistic for the player to be aware of.
Which is why the speed at which Simon can swing his whip in Castlevania wouldn't be considered a cooldown.
Typically in D2 by the midgame mana costs are not significant for most spells; DPS becomes the main issue and cooldowns play a significant factor. IIRC cooldowns are specified in the skill description along with mana cost and damage; certainly after a brief period of using the skill the player will intuitively know how long the cooldown lasts.
You could easily describe a shotgun in a similar fashion, by calling the amount of time it takes to reload the gun the cooldown time.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Btw, isn't the commonly used acronym MMORPG? (Or are there any massively-multiplayer RPGs which are not played online? Seems technically unfeasible... :P )
@Warp: Um... I don't know I probably just missed the O.
@Drekakon: Yes which is exactly why I don't want include that in my definition of cooldown. Rate of Fire/Casting and cooldown need to have some kind of dividing line.
I am more refering to streets of rage, final fight, turtles in time, and the X-man arcade game. In which using your special power would damage the player, making you either not ever using the power, or using it very rarely. Decreasing fun. The "cooldowns" in diablo don't decrease fun, because in Diablo you get to spam all your spells nearly as much as you want. I haven't played Diablo in a very long time, is the casting rate really listen in the spell description? If so, then diablo might be the first game that fits my cooldown definition.
How is a rate of fire, where after shooting you have to wait a set time before you can shoot again, materially different from a cooldown, where after using an ability you have to wait some time before you can use the ability again?
I think you're just griping about being charged health to use something, but that's a standard idea that's been around for ages both in and out of arcades. You keep adjusting your definition so it can be about what you want to talk about. Talk about what you like, and damn the definitions. Just don't try to twist words so they mean what they don't.
Incidentally, you aren't using your specials properly. In the SoR series anyway, using the special costs less than taking a full combo in the face, so you should use them whenever you're about to get hit. They cost health so you don't spam them, but they have great tactical use even without the cooldowns. This increases fun, because now I have to weigh the risks of using the special -- am I about to be hit by that enemy? Should I take that risk, or play it safe and use the special, but pay a known cost? And as I noted earlier, paying in health is occasionally preferable to being forced to wait for the skill to recharge; there are some high-risk strategies that require skill spamming. Is the player not to be allowed that option?
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
There certainly a difference between using a cooldown ability as it is in WoW or Mass Effect vs shooting a gun. If we follow the gun-recoil-is-cooldown precedent then everything has a cooldown. Punching, walking, shooting, jumping all have a cool down. Obviously this means the definition we are working with is broken. I know you know what I am talking about and are just being difficult. Even the term "cooldown" and it's shorthand "CD" are now common and easily recognized by gamers. And it has never been applied to firing a gun.
Every game is different and every game needs to be judged individually on how the system works. I think that in the X-Men game and in Ninja Turtles games the system sucks, because I am punished for using my favorite moves. I would be more fun if I could use my moves without costing myself life. The risk/reward is a gameplay element that I respect, but but I will argue that it's more fun to have a character that can use his abilities more than 5 times per life before dying.
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In resume, correct me if I'm wrong:
Prince of persia getting up after landing blocks every movement.
The shotgun reloading blocks a series of moves, but not all.
The cooldown VirtualAlex is looking for blocks only that specific move's usage.
There certainly a difference between using a cooldown ability as it is in WoW or Mass Effect vs shooting a gun. If we follow the gun-recoil-is-cooldown precedent then everything has a cooldown. Punching, walking, shooting, jumping all have a cool down. Obviously this means the definition we are working with is broken.
No it doesn't, and I meant to mention earlier that IMO any game that institutes a firing rate other than "as fast as you can press the button" has cooldowns of some description. This definition may be a very general definition, but that doesn't mean it's broken. I've been trying to get you to nail down what exactly you're talking about because you've been throwing around terms that have established meanings and claiming they don't apply in situations where those established meanings say they would.
FODA: your notes are interesting, though I'm not convinced they mean that "X is not a cooldown"; rather they mean that "during the cooldown from X, Y status is imposed on the player". What if you had a wrestling character whose special move was a flying tackle, and at the end of the move they had to get up before they could use it again? I suppose this is getting into the difference between a cooldown and a recovery, but functionally I view recoveries as subsets of cooldowns. This is a sufficiently fuzzy area that I wouldn't hold it against you if you disagreed with me.
Going back to X-Men / Turtles in Time again, I'll grant I haven't played those games. However, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if changing those games so that special moves had cooldowns but no health cost would mean that most people would play the game as follows:
1) There's a new enemy!
2) Walk up to enemy, use special attack.
3) Dodge enemies until cooldown expires.
4) Repeat.
Is this really more fun than the alternative? It's certainly a degenerate (i.e. dominating) strategy if your character is remotely capable of dodging attacks; certainly if you're fighting a boss (where it's generally easier to stay away from the only source of damage in the room if you don't plan on attacking) normal attacks just go right out the window.
Much of the point of brawler games is that to defeat enemies, you have to get in close and personal with them -- there has to be the risk of getting hit to go with the reward of being able to attack. Special attacks are brawler games' "smart bombs" that circumvent that tradeoff; they must therefore have a different tradeoff. In shooters the tradeoff is that they have limited supply, but that doesn't really make sense in brawlers where the special attacks don't use up ammunition. The other straightforward options are health costs or delays, but delays have the degenerate-strategy problem. Or if you make the delay long enough that dodging while it counts down isn't feasible, then you end up with the same problem all over again: players complaining that they can't use their special moves as much as they'd like to.
I won't claim to be a genius game designer, but I have a modicum of experience with the basic concepts. Millions of people play games and think "Argh, X mechanic is annoying me! Why can't they just change it to Y instead?" But they don't think Y through and realize how badly it would break the game as written.
EDIT: holy cripes this got long.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
So a "charge-up shot" is basically the same thing as a cooldown, only it comes before the first use and you have to keep your thumb on a button, right?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Ability cooldown has never been a great gaming innovation.
It has been around since the very advent of gaming.
Yes, punching, then having to wait till the punch finishes to be able to punch again is indeed a form of cooldown.
You're maybe thinking of cooldowns that last significantly longer than it takes to execute the move/the ability? (Btw, if the cooldown is shorter than the animation, you call that cancel-abel by itself. It still has a cooldown though.)
As for a random old game that has a long ability cooldown, try Alisia Dragoon for the Genesis. Basically, you have to wait a certain amount of time until you can use that maximum thunder attack or whatever it is. If that doesn't fit your description of an ability cooldown, then I don't get what you're talking about, and chances are many of your readers also wouldn't.
(Yes, I know you could explain with ease why my example is really something different.)
To me it almost seems that you like the idea of a cooldown so much that you want it to be one of the greatest innovations of all time. But it isn't. It was alway there.
*hides*
BoMF: ehh, maybe? The difference there being that you pay the "cooldown" charge before you use the ability. I feel like there's also an implicit assumption that you always want to fire charged shots if they're an option, which depending on the game may not be the case (e.g. charged shots might travel more slowly than uncharged shots). In a situation where you're firing charged shots as fast as possible, sure, the charging time acts as an effective cooldown timer, but otherwise...eeehh, it feels weird to me to call that a cooldown.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
It's also worth noting that MMORPGs were around since 1970s, back when they were turn-based ASCII games, so "before MMORPGs" doesn't leave you with much to choose from. The "X in Y turns" mechanic for spells/abilities, a prime example of what you're talking about, was there since the beginning. Good luck tracking that beginning, though!
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
