Regarding Global Cooldowns - A Players Response

[saiho]

I've recently held a lot of discussions both in-game, on the forums & through various third party applications like Discord regarding the topic of global cooldowns. Ontop of that, I have spent hours reading the original post dated back to 2022 link here (viewtopic.php?p=511684#p511684) which ended up seeing a massive riot and exodus at the time of that post. I now make this post, not in demand of changes but in hopes that a developer might see this and have an open discussion regarding it and a potentially open mind to what might be, a better combat system for a lot of players, I have over 40,000 Hours accumulated across various MMOs both casual & competitive experience and I do feel I have a feeling for what is and is not a good combat system.

Through reviewing a lot of of that forum post & hearing from players directly, it seems many to this day are still displeased with the global cooldown change of 1.5 seconds. However, to play devils advocate I also see a semblance of reasoning as to why you guys made this change, and I am inclined to believe that to this day, three years later you are still attempting balance and large scale changes to accommodate this change and will hopefully be reflected even more in the upcoming reworks. I, as a player who do believe that these games should have a form of skill expression and fluidity will admit that I am a bit displeased with the 1.5s GCD currently, but not only because of the global cooldown. Infact I strongly believe now after a lot of consideration that the GCD Can be kept and the game can still turn reactionary and dynamic. At the core its the culmination of many different things that make the global cooldown feel poor in its current state & sluggish, and is a large reason why we are currently in a defensive meta with glass cannon classes stacking defensive items. Because offense has lost its purpose, and defense has gained more and more power over the years.

This post will focus mainly on how to improve the feeling of combat without directly changing the GCD, It will mostly focus on Off-GCDs, abilities that can be pressed during global cooldowns windows, an example of this is Vengeance of Nagarythe for those of you not aware. I will also not pretend to be overly knowledgeable on every class in this post, but instead focus on classes I do know a lot about, but which can most likely be directly translated into other class in similar likeness.

Below will be bullet points I will discuss & advocate to be put off the global cooldown.

• Taunts

• Morales

• Potions

• Self Buffs

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• Taunts

Anyone that has ever played this game knows the importance of Taunts, it is in essence a reactionary ability to allow you to take less damage in exchange of dealing less damage. This is typically used to survive burst windows and/or against pet classes to reduce the overwhelming damage of pets. However, anyone that has also played PvP knows its a game about tempo, once you are behind it is difficult to catch up. Taunts being on a global cooldown of 1.5 Seconds feels incredibly bad. It loses skill expression because you are more punished & lose a lot of tempo by pressing it, if it was off the global cooldown a player could potentially predict a KD or a large burst from seeing an enemy buff and press their Taunt to reduce the damage taken from the next few attacks during it. However, it feels incredibly bad to do so in the current state of the game because it effectively works as a pseudo-heal for the enemy because you have now spent a potentially damaging ability to the potentially reduce some damage later on, if it was off the global cooldown It would allow for more skillful play.

It also makes fights against pet classes i.e Squig Herder / White Lion / Magus feel even worse because you have to spend your first GCD on their pets while they use multiple to push their advantage onto you. If I could start a fight with a damaging ability, swap quickly, taunt swap back once again. Skill expression.

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• Morales

Morales are inherently, reactionary abilities and it is evident in what they accomplish. Magus M1 knockback, Shadow Warrior M1 knockback, KOTB Shield and so on. These do not need to be on GCD to slow down the game either although arguments could potentially be made and thats where Id like to hear your feedback. For example, no one currently plays with the Shadow Warrior M1 Knockback because it is too poor in its current state compared to its defensive counterparts like Camouflage, but if it was off the GCD Im sure itd be more appealing. Helping even more in counteracting the defensive meta because it could also be used as a burst ability. Then on the hand you have KOTBS M1 Shield, which if it could be used reactionary it could then be used to cancel out potentially burst from other M1s more effectively. Im sure you see the point, it leads to more fluid reactionary & skill expressive gameplay without touching the current GCDs.

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• Potions

Arguably the biggest offender of them all, with the strength of potions in this game and having to nearly mandatory run 3 potions to be effective in PvP, it is yet another culprit of the sluggish poor feeling combat. For example using Flee AP pot, feels horrible but also feels mandatory because you have to spend 2 GCDs just to recover yourself into the fight, not to mention health pots, health pots should be used to counteract large incoming damage at the right time. I will explain this from the perspective of a Shadow Warrior, i play full glass cannon I can effectively stack 5-6k potential damage in one tick with Eagle Eye, Glass arrow, and an Auto Attack because they have a travel time and you can make them land all at once dealing the damage during the same tick, can also be done with fell the weak AA + Glass arrow. You, as a good player should be able to tickpot that damage window without punishing yourself with a 1.5 second GCD, 3 seconds if you wished to use two pots. It also feels bad once youve lost momentum to have to spend your next 3 GCDs just using pots to survive, because it leads to an inevitable loss anyways due to the other playing repeatedly pushing his tempo and momentum, all you are doing is playing a losing game not one where you can come back. And it creates for a poor gameplay experience

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• Self Buffs

I believe certain self buffs should not be on the GCD, and it is already showed in the game. I think a perfect example of this is Driven by Hate a Blackguard ability that regains AP which is off the global cooldown and feels good to press, however on the other side of the coin you have Hunters Fervor a Shadow Warrior Ability that regains AP over time but is on the Global Cooldown and feels horrible to press especially since its a regain over time meaning if you use it once you are low on AP theres no immediate gain for your 1.5 GCD Press, there could be a balance patch regarding which abilities can go on / off the global cooldown in terms of self buffs, and I am willing to discuss that further with the developers and provide my insight.

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Hopefully this post will at the very least spark potential discussion with the developers about changes they could potentially make to speed up the gameplay, fluidity and skill expression in your kit without having to go back on their global cooldown change all those years ago, I believe you as developers and we as players can meet a middle ground if we work together and share our feedback.

And before anyone mentions it, I know this game is balanced around warband play. But changing things like this will only improve the gameplay for anyone running solo, smallscale or anything of the like while not having a major meta change in warband play. Warband will adapt accordingly because the gameplay required in Warbands is completely different anyways so that is, a mute argument.

I am also not advocating for Shadow Warrior buffs or nerfs with this post, which some of you might assume due to me frequently bringing that class up. It is merely examplatory due to my knowledge on those abilities, and you can translate your own knowledge of your class in comparison to those mentioned.

[Nameless]

You were complaining that the game is too focused on defence but here you propose to make some of the basic defence stuff free from gcd

[saiho]

You were complaining that the game is too focused on defence but here you propose to make some of the basic defence stuff free from gcd

A large portion why defence is so good is because of the things on GCD and the long GCD. For example, having 1.5 second GCD means the damage usually ticks out slower but the regen as an example is not locked behind the same GCD as it pumps out the same amount of regen regardless

If you remove the GCD of things like Morales, youre opening up more burst windows i.e 600 Guaranteed dmg from SW M1 combined with stacking a Eagle eye glass arrow autoattack is a ton of unpredictable damage due to travel time.

Not to mention, those who want to play glass cannon offensive builds will probably feel more inclined to do so if the only few things saving them from not dying to someone sneezing on them is off the GCD so they can actually use their damage before feeling forced to use things to survive. Playing an offensive build feels really bad because you have to trade your window of dealing damage with your window of chugging a pot. And that hurts players with more damage than it hurts those with less

Same thing goes for the taunt, if you can more effectively use it in a reactionary manner youre not in a position where you need to make your own character immortal because you can reduce the damage you take from skillful play, and if youre already a glass cannon build going up against a pet is a complete disaster because your build is all about dealing large crits and killing people in few GCDs before you yourself die, but instead ur wasting a 1.5 sec GCD on a pet just to survive it a little bit because the pet alone will kill you. Infact the taunt is not worth the press anymore, simply because of its GCD Timer. This is not a concern for tankier builds because they dont pose as big of a threat and can spend time killing it if they so choose

It creates avenues for people to actually be more offensive because right now with the long GCD, the only avenue you have is going defensive if anything its a buff to glass cannon builds, because I as a glass cannon player wouldnt have to make the choice between should I crit this guy for 3k right now and push my own tempo, or do I need to use a pot before this tank sneezes on me and I die. If I can pot while also pushing my tempo with high damage, their own damage falls behind and the tempo shifts to the more offensive player

Regen items themselves need to be addressed individually, but making a more reactionary gameplay loop means you dont have to rely on artificial stats to keep you alive but rather your own skill in how effectively you utilize your mitigation

Please feel free to argue why you feel like it would just make the game even more defensive, rather than just that one liner which doesnt really provide anything to the discussion, if you look at it from an objective point of view you should be able to see why it benefits an offensive player far more than a defensive player.

[vanbuinen77]

Its not the gcd thats the issue, its the input delay.

[Mvl130]

There are multiple problems regarding combats :

- Healers heal for too much, especially in scenarios, which creates stalemates

- Too much RNG that can nullify damage and controls through parry, block and so on, making gameplay inconsistent, and also creating stalemates against defensive builds

- Stats gap is too wide, making fights uneven, unfair

These issues barely exist in tier 1, which is the reason this tier is more enjoyable than anything beyond it.

The global cooldown is I think a secondary issue compared to these problems, as Tier 1 can be enjoyable even with a GCD of 1.5.

[saiho]

There are multiple problems regarding combats :

- Healers heal for too much, especially in scenarios, which creates stalemates

- Too much RNG that can nullify damage and controls through parry, block and so on, making gameplay inconsistent, and also creating stalemates against defensive builds

- Stats gap is too wide, making fights uneven, unfair

These issues barely exist in tier 1, which is the reason this tier is more enjoyable than anything beyond it.

The global cooldown is I think a secondary issue compared to these problems, as Tier 1 can be enjoyable even with a GCD of 1.5.

I think its also something that is quite subjective, I for one dont enjoy Tier 1, having even less abilities than at level 40 makes the combat feel slower despite damage numbers being higher. Putting aside numbers for now, damage, healing etc its the sluggish feeling of combat that bothers me the most. Putting things off the GCD would remedy that by a ton and allow for more dynamic fluid gameplay