Any information about the global CD's on abilities/spells?

Mrdgames

Hi,

Is there any information about the global CD's on abilities/spells? Long CD's on abilities/spells really can break the combat flow, I hope AOC will have a CD system like WOW for the basic spells that is around 1,5sec, I'm mentioning WOW because they seems to have one of the best regarding the basic CD on spells (system combat wise).

Ludullu

I hope they don't have a gcd

PenguinPaladin

Id perfer each spell/skill to have its own cooldown in general. Now if basic combat spells end up with mostly 1.5 second cool down, cool. But it should be specific for each ability, imo

Mrdgames

PenguinPaladin wrote: »

Id perfer each spell/skill to have its own cooldown in general. Now if basic combat spells end up with mostly 1.5 second cool down, cool. But it should be specific for each ability, imo

yes ofc for the basic spells like a 1.5sec CD and for the defensive and offensive Big hitter spells ofc a longer CD. But the most important part is that the basic spells don't have 2sec or more CD on them that is just bad and totally takes out the flow of the combat. I hope Intrepid has worked out something regarding the CD's of spells.

Talents

There's no info on it since the combat is currently going through a complete rework.

Caww

I just hope all cool downs are properly coded so that bugs and exploits are near non-existent.

CROW3

No CDs at all. I'd just want to watch a group of 30 mages, half with fireballs and half with an aoe spell reflect.

Mass chaos.

PenguinPaladin

There is a good place for rng right there. Spell relefect to random target instead of just who attacked. Fire ball pinball, open the betting pool

Sol Raven

GCD is a crock of shite for boring tab target MMOs. I hope none of it exists in AoC for skills/spells/attacks.

PenguinPaladin

Yeah, no cooldowns at all! Those are for boring tab target MMO's! We want Hotups here for our sexy action tab hybrid MMO.

Whats this guy on about.

Cutie

I certainly hope there won't be any global cd's so I dont have to sit there and look down at my hotbar to see if my next skill in my combo rotation is ready to be pressed...

Might aswell play adventure quest worlds at that point

Noaani

Initially, GCD's were introduced to tab target games as a means of combatting latency. You could queue up a spell, and that action would be sent to the server and executed as soon as it was possible.

Thus, a 0.5 second GCD would cover 500ms latency fairly well - and as time went on and connections got better and such a long GCD wasn't needed, many games added in stats on gear and in builds that reduced the GCD.

It was actually the lack of this that caused players in Archeage with a latency over 250ms to have major issues in 1v1 PvP (the game was obviously designed for Korean connections).

Basically, without a GCD or some other mechanic to perform a similar role (I can't think of any other mechanic, but I am sure one could exist), PvP combat will more often than not come down to who has the better connection to the server. The longer a games TTK is, the more of an impact connection speed will have.

Craiken

A global cooldown make sense to me. Why would my character be able to do everything at once? It takes a little bit of time to swing an axe or whatever.

Ryozo

Hopefully not. Global cooldowns for regular skills should not exist.

Burnzey

I don't like ESOs no cool down on abilities theme. it feels too spammy.

instant ability damage cooldowns in action combat mmos need to be on 4-12 seconds to help with balance. Too long and missing them feels unsatisfying, too short can be spammy and overpowered. It also depends if abilities are combo builders like getting 5 stacks of something, In which case these abilities need just a GCD that's tied into the finisher that consumes the stacks.

Abilities that require cast times of 3 seconds and higher shouldn't have cooldowns. The risk of standing in one spot casting needs to yield reward.

Noaani

Cutie wrote: »

I certainly hope there won't be any global cd's so I dont have to sit there and look down at my hotbar to see if my next skill in my combo rotation is ready to be pressed...

Might aswell play adventure quest worlds at that point

I have to say, even if you are playing a game with rotations - if you need to even look at your hotbar to know what abilities are up, you are not very good at the game.

That said, it is always amusing when someone comes in and says "I don't like this type of gameplay", followed immediately by a statement that proves they are simply not very good at that type of gameplay.

In all seriousness though, don't blame tab target games for your inability to internally monitor a few timers.

Ludullu

Craiken wrote: »

A global cooldown make sense to me. Why would my character be able to do everything at once? It takes a little bit of time to swing an axe or whatever.

But with something like animation locking of casts and that animation being based on your stats, you'd see your character's progress when you use your skills. I loved that at the start of L2 the game was quite slow and it took more time to cast stuff, but when you were at the top lvl you'd be hitting dudes left and right within seconds and mages would be casting their incantations much faster too, exactly because they've been doing it for months already.

I find it kinda silly when you don't have such progress in a game.

Ferryman

There can be more reasons why global cooldowns are used but here are a few important points. Global cooldown is a tool used for balance the combat and deal with server communication and latency. Without GCD players who have better pings have advantage, and who presses buttons fastest deals most damage. When you combine that with macroing the combat can be quite broken pretty fast. Therefore, it is good to understand that GCD is there for a reason and removing it totally can break the combat entirely. However, some abilities can be taken out of the GCD to fluid the combat.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

I find it kinda silly when you don't have such progress in a game.

So do I.

A GCD doesn't prevent this from happening though.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

[So do I.

A GCD doesn't prevent this from happening though.

How though? Does gcd become smaller at higher lvls? Isn't it the same across all lvls and classes?

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

[So do I.

A GCD doesn't prevent this from happening though.

How though? Does gcd become smaller at higher lvls? Isn't it the same across all lvls and classes?

Many games have effects which reduce the GCD. Sometimes it is on gear, sometimes it is in a classes build. The older a game is, the more likely it is to have this.

As I said earlier in this thread, GCD was originally a mechanic to even the playing field for lower latency players. As connection speeds got better, games started giving players options for lowering their GCD if they felt they had a good enough connection for it.

The other thing some games do is add in abilities that are independent of the GCD, so they can be used while the GCD is running, and dont trigger it.

In EQ2 as an example, the GCD was 0.5 seconds. I had mine down to 0.3 and could have potentially gone lower, but I had a 300ms ping at the time so would not have seen any real advantage in going lower - so instead I invested in other areas.

It is very much a case of adding in the character progression when the bulk of players had the connection speed to support it.

The reason this works is that if I have a 300ms ping, and I cast an ability as soon as my last one has finished casting, it still takes 300ms (or 0.3 second) for the server to receive that command and execute it. If every player has a 0.5 second GCD, the server can receive that command, and execute it 500ms after the last ability finished casting. It doesnt matter when the server receives that command within that 0.5 seconds, it will hold it until the GCD is over.