Well i think the problem is not skill spamming, i think the problem is once you reach a certain point in the EA every enemy just dies too fast, so this will not be an issue once the game is released and new areas are introduced and those skills wont do the same huge damage they did on those early game enemies, and the new skills on better weapons might cost more focus too, this will balance things out.
True. Devs have also said they want the world to be more dynamic = enemies scaling better towards player item level or something.
IMO the idea of cooldown triggers ‘feels bad’ from the perspective of players.
I agree that the mobs got too easy in EA late game now, but there’re far better ways to resolve the issue than introducing a cooldown to items.
I think the root cause is while the game tries to be a souls-like, most mobs don’t have an intimidating moveset, also their aggro rate is kinda low, as in, most of time it feels like they’re proactively showing/giving you the window and be like: hey, land hits on me now, use your rune.
The rewarding part SHOULD BE that the mobs are good, but you beat them anyways, that’s the core rewarding mechanism of souls game – it’s hard, but FAIR, and this is what gives players dopamine rush.
Unironically the Crucible Knight in Elden Ring is a great pressing example, it gives so much pressure that after killing him you feel like a god.
I’m talking about normal gameplay non-cheese design here, with these types of games, people will always find a build that’s broken and that’s it. I would suggest refining the mobs movesets to include better combo divsersity, mobs should be punishing, but you hit as hard.
Disagree with everything you said.
Rune’s should be spammable, if your build allows for it. While I agree that currently it’s a bit to easy to spam, it really should just be a matter of tweaking so numbers.
Focus should limit how you cast, not some arbitrary cooldown.
This isn’t even that practical with the Focus potion nerf. If there is a problem here, then perhaps potions need a longer drinking animation so there’s more of a risk to drinking them.
Just no to everything you said.
Keep in mind we’re all basically roided out from being able to max out our gear way sooner than we should have been able to.
No cd plz…solving this problem involve simple tweeking of focus and its mods on gear.
How about removing or extremely nerfing/adjusting focus gain on Rune damage?
As of now with at least one item that provides focus on damage I can infinitely spam rune skill.
If the combat boils down to rune spam I believe it to be a combat design problem
normal combat it self is kinda weird and empty, enemies in general have stray forward attacks and rotating attacks, and worst of all: sliding / jumping ultra fast attacks…
I don’t have a solution for this that bothers me other than slowing combat down and making it more deliberate, for it seamed as the stamina was intended for a slower paced game, while they speeded up the enemies, and then speeded up the player and everything went bananas
I do agree spamming is a problem it is not engaging. I don’t like the cooldown idea that much either. Maybe they can also just use stamina that would make it less spammable.
Another way of solving the problem is adding stamina cost for runes…outside of staff class ofc.
There are other solutions to reduce spamming.
If the mechanical differences between runes were greater, then different situations - even within the same fight - might require different runes, so there would be more incentive to at least alternate runes.
If there were more conditional runes, and also runes to apply those conditions, then correctly chaining multiple runes would work better than just spamming a single rune.
If some runes would apply non-stacking effects, then spamming those runes would be relatively less efficient.
If there were multiple resources for runes plus ways to generate those resources (e.g. some runes use stamina instead of focus, some runes that use focus might generate stamina), this would also allow for builds relying on correctly chained runes or just opportunistic casting of different runes.
OMG brother no need to try and move a mountain…whats the cause of a spamable shi** in any game…wrong ressource management.
Its either stamina or focus , the devs have to just decide which one is easier and faster to balance, maybe both in an interplay.
except its not a moba
Yeah potions not the problem. Focus gain on damage dealt is the biggest problem. Couple that with rune attacks with multiple hits that also generate huge amounts of stagger and you have a recipe for huge imbalance.
There are multiple ways to address this. I like post above to make different runes effects more conditional. There should be a risk reward. You can’t have easy to spam (no risk) that also does stagger and also does lots of damage. That’s just broken.
The runes that knock down or otherwise stun lock the bosses should not be spammable. Or if they are they should be hard to pull off and interruptible.
Not a fan of cool downs but agree focus Regen coupled with certain runes is a problem.
@OP
I dont see any issue, the game is animation driven and the animation (the time it take to do that action) is the cooldown both for rune attacks or drinking potion.
When you drink a potion you are open to attacks and you can’t cancel the animation to evade and if you have focus you should be able to spam runes.
I disagree… sry brother but youre comparing a finger with a dic*. Those are different beasts by nature, cant approach a wolf the same way you approach a lion.
No cds plz.
Personally I’ve always liked cooldowns on abilities in games like these, it incentives you to use all of your abilities instead of just spamming the best one. Giving us cooldowns and CDR on gear would be great, though if people are opposed then an affix giving cooldown on abilities in exchange for increased power would be cool too…
I need to wall-of-text this. Sorry.
Consider Rune A (copyright 2024, Rune Naming Institute of Isola Sacra)
Rune A:
Project a magic circle on the ground. After a delay of 3 seconds, everyone in the circle takes damage.
That sounds pretty clunky and unwieldy, right? But that can be balanced, because it could deal slightly more damage to compensate for being unwieldy. Now there are suddenly situational uses for such a rune:
If you have a rune that roots enemies to the ground, then rune A is good. If you’re in a position where lots of enemies have to pass through a choke point, rune A is good.
Let’s say my gear has the following runes:
Rune A (as above)
Rune B:
Deal a small amount of damage. Debuff the target for a short time, causing it to take a percentage extra damage from everything that hits it in the next few seconds.
Rune C:
Deal a fair bit of damage. Deal extra damage if it hits a debuffed target.
Rune D:
A fast-casting rune that deals moderate damage, but also drains your stamina and poise.
Rune E:
An instant lightning bolt with no travel time that deals good damage, but has a long after-animation that can’t be cancelled (rumbling thunder, dark clouds seeping out of your sleeves, all that good stuff). You’d better be sure this kills the target, or it will leave you extremely vulnerable.
Individually, all of these would be, in most circumstances, inferior to a simple fireball. But if you chain them correctly, and if you have good situational awareness and make the right tactical decisions, together, they form a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts and is far more effective than just spamming fireball. For example, the fact that rune A deals damage on a delay means you can make better use of rune B’s window of opportunity.
Runes need mechanical distinctions, because then synergies can be discovered and actual builds can be crafted. I’m certainly not necessarily against cooldowns, but mechanical distinctions (such as, but not limited to, conditional effects) are more important.
No thanks. That’s creating an unnecessary problem and filling it in with another hard to balance solution.
Most of the great ARPGs don’t really have cooldowns on skills. Diablo 2 and Path of Exile, for example. Most of the great soulslikes also don’t have cooldowns on skills either.
I like that Moon didn’t put cooldowns on skills here either. Cooldowns just lead to games where “press the button when the skill is ready” is the right move 99% of the time, and that’s not particularly interesting. I want to be able to pay attention to the fight, not my cooldown bar.
To be fair, in a game like this where you’re liable to get hit and lose all of your health mashing your buttons off cooldown isn’t really a viable strategy, though I see your point. Implementing cooldowns doesn’t really change how we’re playing beyond making us push the best button that’s off cooldown during our window to attack. I can see how that’d just be a source of irritation a lot of the time.
Still, I wish there was more of a reason to use all of our abilities. You mentioned pushing the button when the skill is ready not being particularly interesting but that’s the exact system we currently have, except that it’s gated by focus rather than a cooldown.
I’ve heard talk of a talent tree so maybe they give us something there, or some kind of elemental reaction system could possibly work though that might be a weird fit for Wicked. If certain skills gave debuffs that could also create playstyles more interesting than spamming one ability. I think there are options here, though thinking about it I agree that implementing skill cooldowns is very likely not the best solution. I think it’s probably better design to incentivize players with a reward rather than create a restriction that they’re forced to work around.