Making the case for a game with tons of abilities/skills/spells and high cooldowns.

In light of the recent dev discussion subjects, a respectable number of people insisted that they prefer to keep the average cooldowns of abilities low (I'd expect a preference for 3-20 seconds). Same goes for the number of abilities available to a player on their skill bars (1-2 bars max).

I'm here to demonstrate the benefits of a game with a large number of available skills (with high cooldowns as one important tool to balance out the strength of their flexibility and impact), as an essential part of the joy of locked-target combat.

I'm about to list some of these advantages, but before I do, let me attest that I have experienced these principles functioning in games that I have loved and played for 3-10 years.

(Mostly indie stuff. Regnum was best.
Dark Swords [sic!] came second, but fell off upon later development decisions.
I can't say I got far enough in DaoCamelot to know for sure that it was as good as Regnum, but what I've seen from it definitely got pretty close)

In fact, the only reason I didn't keep playing those games for even more years were personal time management and the deaths of communities (which are certainly evidence for flaws in a game - but the games I played were small-studio games, and while they definitely had flaws that led to their eventual death, I'd argue that their skill and class systems were not among those.)

So I'm not just speaking from wishful thinking and idealism.

There is a natural interdependency between skill strength, number of available skill slots/points, and cooldowns.
When developers use high cooldowns to balance the effectiveness of an ability, it enables (or in some cases even requires) the skill designer to pump out more powerful abilities and spells in larger numbers; especially those designated to have high impact in group play. (Doesn't have to mean AoE)

- If all players have access to that increased number of powerful skills to choose from, that lets small-scale PvP feel more like an exchange between powerful masters of their craft who keep one-upping each other with attacks and counters, instead of the type of action-combat mechanics fiestas where players have to wildly fling basic attacks, try to optimise stacks without really paying attention to what their enemy is doing, repeatedly spam the same abilities five times in a row, and press "dodge-roll" at the right time to escape the enemy warlock's comet.
(You know, the type of combat where you have to wonder why you're not playing Dark Souls instead.)
Meanwhile in large-scale PvP, groups are forced to play tactically around those cooldowns.
And for PvE, how powerful classes are is always relative to how powerful the mobs and bosses are, so that factor can be relativised as much as necessary anyway.

To address a likely counter-point to this in regards to group play: "Playing around" a cooldown doesn't have to involve waiting. It can be about immediately forcing enemies to use their resources by threatening them with spatial pressure or using your own cooldowns. It can be about moving differently. It can be about distributing class roles differently. Depending on what the more crucial abilities in question are, and which side has which ones remaining, the ways to deal with them can be varied.

One disagreement with this design choice is purely concerned with the concept of high cooldowns. People demand the "agency" of being able to cast everything they have at all times. ("If I have the mana for it, I should be able to use it repeatedly, if I think that's my best option.")
The simple counterargument I have to this is: Power.
You cannot allow every fighter to cast something like 95% resistance to all CC and debuffs for 20 seconds 10 times in a row until they're oom. It would be insane. CC is one of the primary tools in balancing melee burst in games that have combat surrounding zones of influence (such as sieges.)
But you can allow them to cast 95% resistance to all CC and debuffs for 20 seconds (or for 10 seconds, if you want to be more action-leaning) once every 5 minutes when the group requires it.

If you don't use cooldowns to create these balances, you have to find other ways to nerf the ability's overpowering control over the player's enemy. This then either takes the shape of cooldowns-with-extra-steps (diminishing returns upon repeated casts; can't be recast on the same player, etc.) or straight-up weaker abilities in the game, just for the sake of the "freedom" of cutting cooldowns.
I dislike these options because being powerful feels good. It lets decisions matter, it rewards strategic group coordination, and it raises the stakes, so paying attention and responding to enemy actions makes a bigger difference.

So ultimately, lots of abilities to choose from raise the skill ceiling, and make the player feel more equipped to display their supremacy in any given situation. This is often countered with a sentiment along the lines of: "If you have 35 different abilities available, you'll just be prepared for everything and nothing can counter you, so coming up with a good skill build doesn't matter anymore."

I find that this criticism would hold some merit - not everyone should be able to do everything and counter every opponent. But it's just not how it ever really plays out.
Classes still have tendencies towards particular types of weaknesses and strengths and internal limitations of their kit synergies, even if you give them powerful skills tailored to every possible scenario, and let them slot all of them into their 3+ skill bars.
A well-designed game in which 3+ skill bars are the norm still ensures specialisation and variety by giving the average class combination options of at least twice as many skills as their skill points can fill (even if you leave some of them below max rank), so there is still plenty of need for personalised specialisation, and there will still be weaknesses/downsides to every build decision one makes.

A final concern is the simple one that players just don't like having to deal with using more than 2 skill bars.

(I'll forego those who just want less than 8 skill slots. It's been firmly established that Ashes won't be pure action combat, and I think most of us understand the benefits of that, even if not all of us agree. So frankly if that's the combat you need, I think you're better off just looking for a game that's better tailored to that type of experience.)

Even players who would be fine with up to ~2 full skill bars might just prefer to focus on mechanics that are more fast-paced, and non-clunky than scrolling around skill bars and needing to use the entirety of their keyboard, or even buy a nerdy 12-button-mouse.
To those, I only have 2 recommendations:

I personally play MMOs by swapping between my active skill bars with F1-F4 (and then pressing the regular 1-0 keys), and I think lots of people might benefit from that.
No Shift, no Alt - My left hand only ever pushes one button besides WASD. While pressing Shift would be effortless, not relying on Alt makes a world of a difference in keeping your fingers in a fluid motion. And things just stay more tidy in your mind, when you fully switch to a skill bar dedicated to a specific group of functions.
Better yet: No mouse-wheel inaccuracy - My buttons directly address the skill bar I want to switch to without depending on the position of the skill bar of my previous cast; and then a single button press executes the cast I want.
Not everyone needs to be able to play the game the same way. If you like playing with 2 skill bars max, you can still have tons of impact. You just have to make your gameplay count in a different way from someone who's controlling 4-5 of them, with all the added flexibility…
(And I'd go so far as to say that the game shouldn't cater to this preference so much that you can fit the entirety of your skill points into 2 skill bars; I think that would be making it too easy for them.
That said, keep in mind that players who want even more flexibility would still have to accept a lower amount of max-rank abilities. And for those who are content with 2 skill bars, perhaps passive skills should be able to pick up some of the bulk of the extra skill points.)

Hope I structured this in a useful enough way.
Excited what people have to say about this!

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Comments

Noaani

My preference is for many abilities with longer cooldowns, but with interaction between various spells, item effects and buffs from other players, so as to not make it so you just use the best ability you have that is off its cooldown

Dezemi

"95% resistance to CC and debuffs for 20 seconds"? Absolutely not.

Songcaller

You can build small or large. Cooldowns will be nailed during testing though.

Dezemi

To properly comment on the discussion:

Overall, hard pass on my part.

First of all - what we have seen so far is showcases of level 15 classes. I am sure stronger abilities with longer CDs will come when we reach higher levels. I also feel quite certain there will be about one or two more rows of ability bars at high levels.

Second of all - having access to as insane abilities as you suggested ("95 CC and debuff resistance for 20 seconds") just sound like an absolute nightmare. It might sound fun in RvR, but open world skirmishes and small scale dungeon PvP would all come down to who oneshots the other guy first - and that is not a fun design in a game where death matters.

Finally - from a PvE perspective (as the game is PvX), it sounds really boring. Pull big packs, slaughter everything ala WoW m+ style, grab one mob at the time until CDs are back up, repeat. I prefer a more even flow. Sure, CDs can be a thing but not in the way you describe. That would simply not be a game for me.

Laetitian

It might sound fun in RvR, but open world skirmishes and small scale dungeon PvP would all come down to who oneshots the other guy first

Nah, the games I am referencing had abilities like that, and open-world ganking and small-group PvP felt totally balanced and well-paced.
(Admittedly, the ability you quoted was added in a major balance patch, and it was certainly among the more controversial ones. But in my perception, most people learned to love the higher stakes after a while. The balance patch in general was widely celebrated, and all its changes were in line with this general philosophy.)

It all leads back to the "one-upping each other with attacks and counters" I mentioned. If the enemy has powerful tools, you likely also have powerful tools to defend yourself.
Keep in mind, "many powerful tools" doesn't have to mean a suite of uncounterable two-shot damage abilities. It just means many strong effects.

Sure, when an aggro-specced Fighter-Fighter fights a mirror matchup, that very likely means the fight will be over in less than 20 seconds. But any non-mirror matchups, or rangers or mages fighting each other, should offer enough tricks up each player's sleeves to keep fights engaging. Provided they're seeing melees coming in time, or have very strong disengage and mobility.

I totally understand your concerns though, and I doubt I'd be able to convince you otherwise. That might just be a difference in opinion that can't be overcome.

from a PvE perspective (as the game is PvX), it sounds really boring. Pull big packs, slaughter everything

For mindless overland farming to fill the time? Yeah, that might be how it turns out.
I'd argue the way you counteract that is by making XP-gaining systems inherently incentivise players to prioritise beating difficult mobs and bosses. Not just with contested objectives, but also just by rewarding players for beating enemies that outlevel them. All the games I've played that did that were an absolute blast.
And when we get to dungeons, they can obviously also counteract those issues in a number of creative ways.

Kilion

While I get the overall idea, I am not really into it - or to be more precise; I don't really see a reason to change it for Ashes.

TL;DR:
Having a limitation on the number of skills you can put into your hotbar basically resulting you only being able to use 50% of your available skills means you have to prepare your skill kit, like your gear, before going into an encounter. I think that is a fine concept, as good as any other as it adds a "prepare for adventure" flavor which some will like while other would rather just dive in and react more flexible and in the situation with most (or all) of their skill kit ready.

Secondly, in my opinion, a huge action bar is annoying. Especially when the designers made a game with a certain level of aesthetics I don't want the hotbar to cover it all. This was one thing that annoyed me about WoW, where it felt like the UI elements covered most of the screen.

Third, as you mentioned, your idea focuses on a tab target system. But Ashes is hybrid and will not change that.

And lastly, due to the augmentation system, I don't think it is feasible idea in Ashes to expand the skill kit by lets say 50-100% as it would immediately multiply the work load. Taking the 35-40 active skill number per archetype multiplying it by the number of possible augmentations which is most likely around 14-28 and you already arrive at 490-1120 skills per primary archetype. I am assuming it will be more on the lower number side but you get the idea, if the number of base skills were to increase that would drastically increase the number of skills they need to make and even though the modular design kit helps speeding up the process of creating a skill, I doubt that is a work load they would want to burden themselves with.

Laetitian wrote: »

One disagreement with this design choice is purely concerned with the concept of high cooldowns. People demand the "agency" of being able to cast everything they have at all times. ("If I have the mana for it, I should be able to use it repeatedly, if I think that's my best option.")
The simple counterargument I have to this is: Power.
You cannot allow every fighter to cast something like 95% resistance to all CC and debuffs for 20 seconds 10 times in a row until they're oom. It would be insane.

Not really, because the other skills cost mana as well and spamming CC protection will result in no use of damage skills and limiting oneself to auto attacks only reduces the danger that CC immune character poses.

Laetitian wrote: »

If you don't use cooldowns to create these balances, you have to find other ways to nerf the ability's overpowering control over the player's enemy.

Yeah, the primary tool for that will be resource management, but skills will have varying cooldowns as well and talents as well as gear will allow us to adjust resource expenses and/or cooldowns, always forgoing on something else e.g. greater damage, buff or duration potential, maybe even AoE size.

Laetitian wrote: »

[...] being powerful feels good. It lets decisions matter, it rewards strategic group coordination, and it raises the stakes, so paying attention and responding to enemy actions makes a bigger difference.

Agreed, being powerful feels good. Ashes from all I know tries to create the feeling of power by tiered status effects / class synergy. That rewards the same things that you mentioned.

Laetitian wrote: »

So ultimately, lots of abilities to choose from raise the skill ceiling [...]

In one regard it does, in others it does not. It is ONE way to create a skill hurdle. And I wouldn't necessary say it is better or worse than the direction Ashes seems to take. Setting up a cross-class combo is also something one would need good judgement and group awareness for. Again, not saying this is not a legit take, I'm simply not seeing this as so much better that I would hope for

Laetitian wrote: »

[...] countered with a sentiment[/b] along the lines of: "If you have 35 different abilities available, you'll just be prepared for everything and nothing can counter you, so coming up with a good skill build doesn't matter anymore."

I find that this criticism would hold some merit - not everyone should be able to do everything and counter every opponent. But it's just not how it ever really plays out.

On this point I would refer back to point 2 and 4 of my list.

Laetitian wrote: »

A final concern is the simple one that players just don't like having to deal with using more than 2 skill bars.[...]

It seems that Intrepid will limit players to have 20 active skills in their hotbar and not more. And I don't think that this need "fixing" or anyhting (not that I would think that is what you said, just trying to point out that I like the idea)

From all I've seen and heard Intrepid desgin or plan on implementing it will be a game where we as players will be specialists on every "mission" instead of perma flexible. Again, I don't think that your idea is bad or that your arguments aren't sound, they are, but I think the idea doesn't transfer well to Ashes.

But there is a lot of good food for thought in this post regarding game design and decision making.

Laetitian

Third, as you mentioned, your idea focuses on a tab target system. But Ashes is hybrid and will not change that.

They've always said they err on the side of locked-target where necessary for good gameplay.
And as far as I'm concerned, any game where you leftclick for basic attacks is usually essentially [AoC already looks a lot like] action/hybrid combat.

I don't think it is feasible idea in Ashes to expand the skill kit by lets say 50-100% as it would immediately multiply the work load.

Skill design is part of the core job of a whole department, and we have years to go before publishing. And while it is a little more balancing work, it also relaxes some balancing issues, because players will have more tools to come up with the necessary counters for the situation they end up with.

multiplying it by the number of possible augmentations which is most likely around 14-28 and you already arrive at 490-1120 skills per primary archetype.

While i'm sure they'd find a way to make it feasible (perhaps even scalable), I will grant you this: It's perhaps only financially justified, if the gameplay clearly benefits from a more vast set of skill options.

Ashes from all I know tries to create the feeling of power by tiered status effects / class synergy. That rewards the same things that you mentioned.

This might be the part where I disagree the most. In my experience, class synergies and tiered status effects are nice-to-haves. The more impactful they are on the strength of my gameplay and "decisions", the less they make me feel feel powerful, and instead make me feel like I'm micromanaging min/maxing minigames.
For transparency, the games I am thinking of when I say this are ESO (which is the king of proc-fests among the games I've actually spent a lot of time on; granted, there are not a lot of cross-player synergy mechanics in ESO), some random action-themepark MMOs I've tested or watched other people play, and a bunch of unsatisfying single-player dungeon-crawler games, brawlers, or niche MOBAs that force their mechanics down your throat a bit too self-satisfiedly.
I like synergies and procs. I enjoy playing around them, being aware of them, and using them to my benefit. I don't like when they replace a large bulk of my impact and decisionmaking.

That might actually be my main gripe with the system as it is. That it just doesn't leave the skill design team enough room for creative ways to really make you feel like your moment-to-moment in-combat decisions have weight.

Iskiab

One thing you mentioned that I strongly disagree with is that powerful long CDs encourage coordination in high level PvP so raise the skill cap.

This is something that sounds good but never pans out in reality. Either it enables group one shots and is nerfed or it doesn’t and is never coordinated well. It ‘sounds’ right, but just isn’t true in practice.

I’m more in favour of getting rid of cooldowns entirely and letting mana costs determine how often you use abilities.

Kilion

Laetitian wrote: »

They've always said they err on the side of locked-target where necessary for good gameplay.
And as far as I'm concerned, any game where you leftclick for basic attacks is usually essentially already action/hybrid combat.

Not so sound like a douche but changing definitions doesn't really matter when Intrepid works with a different one and is designing for a different goal. Also, as far as I am aware, the basic weapon attack is a skill in the hotbar, isn't it?

Laetitian wrote: »

Skill design is part of the core job of a whole department, and we have years to go before publishing. And while it is a little more balancing work, it also relaxes some balancing issues, because players will have more tools to come up with the necessary counters for the situation they end up with.

I still don't see why Intrepid would - at this stage - want to consider their design choice regarding active skills though. Yes, your suggestion comes with benefits but also disadvantages, which boils down to simply being a "different" design concept rather than an improvement on my book.

Laetitian wrote: »

While i'm sure they'd find a way to make it feasible (perhaps even scalable), I will grant you this: It's perhaps only financially justified, if the gameplay clearly benefits from a more vast set of skill options.

Yes of course they could make it work. The question is: WHY would they? There have to be some clear advantages that would justify the redesign.

Laetitian wrote: »

This might be the part where I disagree the most. In my experience, class synergies and tiered status effects are nice-to-haves. The more impactful they are on the strength of my gameplay and "decisions", the less they make me feel feel powerful, and instead make me feel like I'm micromanaging min/maxing minigames.
For transparency, the games I am thinking of when I say this are ESO (which is the king of proc-fests among the games I've actually spent a lot of time on; granted, there are not a lot of cross-player synergy mechanics in ESO), some random action-themepark MMOs I've tested or watched other people play, and a bunch of unsatisfying single-player dungeon-crawler games, brawlers, or niche MOBAs that force their mechanics down your throat a bit too self-satisfiedly.
I like synergies and procs. I enjoy playing around them, being aware of them, and using them to my benefit. I don't like when they replace a large bulk of my impact and decisionmaking.

That might actually be my main gripe with the system as it is. That it just doesn't leave the skill design team enough room for creative ways to really make you feel like your moment-to-moment in-combat decisions have weight.

I'm not sure whether the design team is thinking the same way about this - which makes this a great question to pose to Intrepid.

But summing this up it sounds that you mainly prefer a different approach in design withou it being explicitely being a necessary step to make the game work or be attractive. I would think that this idea is worth being remembered if after A2 it turns out that the combat and skill system is not received very well.

Laetitian

Iskiab wrote: »

One thing you mentioned that I strongly disagree with is that powerful long CDs encourage coordination in high level PvP so raise the skill cap.

This is something that sounds good but never pans out in reality. Either it enables group one shots and is nerfed or it doesn’t and is never coordinated well. It ‘sounds’ right, but just isn’t true in practice.

I respect your concerns, but there I just have to disagree from experience. Regnum has seen those types of abilities and their coordination work out in PvP among tens and hundreds of people, and I've been in clans where our coordination was effective, and the intuitive teamplay satisfying. And among the most memorable moments were the times when we got out-coordinated by players who mastered their classes and group-play even more than we had.

Respectfully, my suspicion is that a lot of games never get to the point where you feel the benefit of lots of powerful abilities, because players have so many different reasons to be annoyed when another player is more effective than them - because they're all there to do different things.
Regnum (and probably DaoC) had the strong advantage that most players ultimately went online for the same goal (RvR, farming, and PvP/ganking), so when someone used a powerful ability to stop them from achieving that goal, no one got pissed, because expecting that, preventing it, and doing it yourself, was why people were there. And so the dynamics of the system had the luxury of playing out without as much whining and doubt.

Much, *MUCH* more fun than I ever had with the mechanics that a game like ESO provided, where everyone's chasing their own DPS.

Kilion wrote: »

Also, as far as I am aware, the basic weapon attack is a skill in the hotbar, isn't it?

Hm. In the fighter reveal I was absolutely certain I was watching left-clicks. In the mage update I'm seeing that the greatsword is bound to Q, but we don't see any animation in the hotbar when it's used.
I guess you must be right, since left-click is probably still reserved for target-selection. The video footage just really *felt* action-combat-like to me, but I must have been making wrong assumptions.

Kilion wrote: »

I'm not sure whether the design team is thinking the same way about this - which makes this a great question to pose to Intrepid.

Did you have a particular question in mind when you said that? Cause I'd love to turn my "I hated ESO, please make sure your synergies and procs don't turn into that." rants into a question to propose to the combat team at a suitable occasion.

Kilion

Laetitian wrote: »

[Did you have a particular question in mind when you said that? Cause I'd love to turn my "I hated ESO, please make sure your synergies and procs don't turn into that." rants into a question to propose to the combat team at a suitable occasion.

"How much freedom do you, dear skill designers, have? Do you have a free hand? How much was your creativity limited by the theme/style guide for each class? Do you have to exclude a lot of skills that you would have wanted in an archetypes skill kit due to the number limitation on active skills? Is the upper limit of 40 active skills already set in stone or might it be subject to change after/during the Alpha 2 phase?"

In general there is a bunch of questions you could try to direct at the design teams to gauge how much the design team is actually limited and when the scope on skill design will be locked in stone. As I tried to indicate myself throughout my earlier responses, I also have no solid information on how malleable the skill design is, but I have a feeling what it might be, which was the basis for my responses.

So asking these questions might clarify the process around class and skill design.

Kaseual

Are there any active MMO's with your preferred style of combat that I could give a try?

I'm personally quite pleased with the current direction that AOC seems to be going with CDs and the overall flow of the combat. I'm currently playing Classic WoW HC and I think the way CDs and resource management works in that game is pretty solid. I wouldn't mind if AOC takes similarish route.

High impact abilities definitely should have significant CDs. From the mage showcase for example I'd say blink, shield, hard CC and high damage abilities should be restricted by significant CDs. If the use of those abilities would be restricted only by mana as some suggest, I'd imagine the combat would be absolute dog water. As mentioned, you don't need to look no further than ESO.

As for OP's proposal regarding the amount of skills that would be available for players, I think Killion made a very solid point about the extra workload it would cause. As far as I know the current plan is that players would be able to skill for and equip up to 20ish skills while the total skills per class is 40ish. I think that should provide players with plenty enough of tools and customization possibilities.

Laetitian

Kassual wrote: »

Are there any active MMO's with your preferred style of combat that I could give a try?

Depends on your standards.
If you're in America and you like the look of it, you could give the South-American Regnum servers a go. They speak a mix of English and Spanish in public chat rooms. I never played there, but I know the other servers are too dead to start on - except perhaps the German one.
The game really does not have appealing PvE, so if you're coming from WoW, you'd have to be a serious PvP fanatic to enjoy Regnum, and you'd only like it once you get into the warzone and find a guild.

DaoC has a larger community and more PvE, but I can't directly recommend it because I never made it far enough. You could see if you can find a Twitch stream to check if you're interested. The graphics are a little better in Regnum, though exploration isn't important enough for the difference to matter.

Otherwise no. Sadly, the tendency towards action-combat and low cooldowns has always dominated, and only taken over more in newly released games.

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