Why Cooldowns Aren’t Compelling as a Mechanic

Our own Eric Schwarz has penned a new article over at Gamasutra that shares his dislike for ability cooldowns, why he believes so many developers have turned to them for game balance, and why they ultimately reduce the depth of the game utilizing them. Several role-playing games are mentioned within the article, including Baldur’s Gate, Arcanum, Dragon Age II, Diablo III, and The Witcher series:

In practice, my biggest complaint against cooldown-oriented design is that it tends to take a way a lot of the tactical depth in a situation. As a brute-force stopgap to “solve” poor game balance and make up for problems in other mechanics, many such games feature abilities that are extremely powerful unless mediated, and often in very large quantities. This usually raises the question: “if my abilities are all so powerful, why am I not just using them all the time?”

A game like Dragon Age II, for example, can see the player activating upwards of ten different abilities throughout the course of a single battle, and even the same ones multiple times over if the fight goes on long enough. Actually using them thoughtfully isn’t just completely unnecessary, it can actually be a liability. As most of the abilities in Dragon Age II are instant-use and either have some sort of stun or damaging effect, they quickly become near-indistinguishable from each other; what’s more, the tougher enemies can be heavily resistant or immune to the effects of these abilities, meaning that using them in a way that the situation might call for them simply isn’t very effective.

Dragon Age II does have mana and stamina as additional limiting resources, but they are far less important than the cooldowns themselves. Quaffing potions is usually more than enough to get through, and potions are both plentiful and fairly cheap, so most players will never run out of them. Of course, even the potions have cooldowns on them, to prevent them from being used over and over. Once again, the question comes up: “if potions are so powerful as to require cooldowns, why aren’t they made more expensive, or why can’t there be another game mechanic governing their use?”

The Witcher’s toxicity mechanic prevented the player from drinking potion after potion, for instance; not only did it work well to balance them, it also fit the game’s lore like a glove. Dragon Age II has none of this tact or finesse – rather than turning weaknesses into strengths through smart game mechanics, it slaps more timers on the player until the exploits disappear.