Please consider this to make the game feel smoother with GCD (or without!).

[Lesrider]

I put this together and it seems to have been overlooked in the other massive feedback thread. I'd just like to give some pointers as someone who has played a lot of mobile games. I'd love to see what others think or can add to this.

Just to give some examples of other iDevice games that utilize both regular weapon attacks and skills/spells.
They all have regular weapon attacks as the primary damage dealer. You only really use your skills if you're in a pinch (ie. Bosses, swarms of enemies surrounding you). All of these games limit the players to about 3 active skills. Some have passive skills as well.
PL has always been very different from these other games, in that it has 12 active skills and they're meant to be used all the time, not just in a pinch. Bc if you just use your weapons, you won't get very far.*
This has kept PL unique from other games. But if this has to change with things like GCD, then other changes must be strongly considered to balance it out. If you want active spells to take the backseat (for lag or whatever other reasons), give us passive skills and stronger weapons to make up for it. Or whatever other ways you can come up with.*
Anyway, here are some screenshots of other games:

Dungeon Hunter 2:*
http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa373/xenacrazy/4e13b07e.jpg
You get a number of passive/active skills to choose from (by the end of the game you have a total of 8 active and 8 passive skills to put points into), but only three actives can be on the screen at once. So you must choose wisely. But again, active skills are used mostly for bosses. The passive skills help you with the rest of the mobs.

Braveheart:
http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa373/xenacrazy/6f5a5cc7.jpg
Again, three skills with longish cooldowns. You rely primarily on your attacks and other bonuses/perks.

Solomon's Boneyard:
http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa373/xenacrazy/ab50781d.jpg

You get mainly two skills -- one that activates with the attack button (shoots from your wand), and the other is activated by tapping a button. You can get other skills, but you have to sacrifice the strength of other skills to make room for variety. The secondary skills is mainly for strong aoe attacks when you get surrounded, or teleportation, healing circle, etc. The secondary skills usually require a lot of mana and have long cooldowns. Again, not meant to be used on a constant basis. You focus mostly on the primary skill.

And of course I didn't forget Dungeon Defenders:

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa373/xenacrazy/f8e96bdd.jpg

You have one primary attack button that does not use mana. Then you have two skills/spells that do require mana, and the catch is that they use an increasing amount of mana the longer they're activated. So again, you can't really use them all the time. You must be selective. (I'm ignoring the whole tower defense part here, bc it's not really related.)

And even Infinity Blade makes use of special attacks and magic spells. But they have HUGE cooldowns. They're meant to save you in a pinch. If you really need them in order to win, you have to bide your time until they're ready.*

Didn't mean for this to be so long. My main point is that PL chose its identity a year ago. Players got addicted to it for what it was. Lots of skills/spells and button mashing. But since then, it seems to be having an identity crisis every few months. Choose how you'd like this game to be played, and then stick to it. But if you really absolutely MUST go through this identity change, then look at other games for inspiration on how to make up for what you're taking away.*And I mean mobile touchscreen games. Because you can't really compare this to pc or console games.

[Lesrider]

Just thought of some specifics that are pretty basic to many RPGs and would fit nicely into this game.
And make it feel more like we're gaining something in the process instead of just losing.

For passive skills:
Weapon-specific bonus: For elves, staves/wands are stronger, swords/axes, etc for bears, and of course bows/talons/daggers for birds. Simply put, you do more damage with that weapon if you put points in that skill.
This would give people more of an incentive to go pure instead of hybrid.
You can even split them up into different skills to give people more individuality -- ie. Staves and wands can be separated into different skills, so can 1-h bear weapons or just split by axes vs swords vs hammers. And so on.

Can also add a passive defense bonus for using a shield/wing/bracer. Obviously, the bear's should have a higher bonus that the other two.

And then there's weapons:
Add aoe weapons that would attack more than one enemy at a time. (I know some staves do this, but I never notice much splash damage). Examples: Flail for bears, that spins in a circle around him (look at Braveheart). Bows that shoot multiple arrows, or shoot through enemies to hit others (look at DD). And then mages there are so many possibilities -- fire staff can explode on contact. Ice staff can create a cone of frost. Lightning can bounce from enemy to enemy (look at Solomon's Boneyard/Keep).
The catch is, if you want to use one of these weapons, you have to sacrifice something else (so you don't see everyone using them). Perhaps these weapons can disable certain active skills? This would allow those who are not so comfortable with the GCD to sacrifice some skills in order to do more weapon damage.

Of course, if someone is happy with the way GCD is, they can just use their active skills the way they are now. But for others who want other options, they can put some of their skill points into passive skills, or sacrifice a whole skill to use a more effective weapon.

Let me know what you think. I'll add more as I think of it.

[SUPAPRODIGY]

there was update today and no matter what people should just get used to GCD STS is working hard to make everyone happy and a good experince for everyone have fun playing PL ;)

[Conradin]

I liked PL, because you always had skills. A year ago i was getting over RS, and other online games where you had to have large cool downs for special attacks etc. I got into pvp on here- quickly making combos, debuffing and knowing which skill to use when and to do it quickly. So for those who have played this game since the beginning, and others who have logged many hours more than me, hitting your skills with gcd is awkward. I have to choose whetger to buff, debuff, or attack everytime. I think if PL must do gcd we need stronger weapons and passive skills like you sead les. And buffs and heals should not be included in gcd. Some passive ideas are to- archers speed, bears armor, elves hit etc. If we had other skills like mining, fishing etc, more passive skills would be added. We could also have skill trees like in Wow, ehere if you go dpwn on branch after putting in points you will get a spell, ir going down another and gettinh a different spell.

What im trying to say, if anything, is that i agree with you Les and think we need somethig to balance the awkwardness of GCD.

[Lesrider]

there was update today and no matter what people should just get used to GCD STS is working hard to make everyone happy and a good experince for everyone have fun playing PL ;)

Can you please read what I wrote before responding? I put some effort into this, and I never said GCD has to go. I was giving some suggestions to make it more bearable.


And thanks conradin -- I was just giving some examples. The possibilities really are endless.
I agree, the 12 active skills and button smashing was fun for me too. But it seems like that's no longer an option, so hopefully something can be added to make up for it.

[Kalielle]

I think those are some great ideas for a much needed rebalance if GCD is to stay.

I remember when they had the other major rebalance, they lowered weapon dps significantly to make people rely on skill use more, and reduced skill cooldowns. Now if they're going to make skills less powerful then as Les says they could make weapons more powerful to balance them out.

Having different kinds of weapon damage also sounds interesting. One other thing I could think of is having a knockback effect for some of the melee weapons, or even some of the other weapons for that matter. It could make the default attack more engaging because players would have to be very careful about which way they approach the enemy, so as to move him in the direction they want. They'd also be awful weapons in a noob's hands, just as powerful as they'd be in the hands of a skilled player - but I think that's a good way of bringing more skill and choices into the game.

[giayuan]

Good stuff lesrider! Awesome part is all these games ive played before and know exactly what your talking about ;D Anyway, I really believe this "sticking to one identity" thing, but lets face it.. PL is all about its variety and thats why I love it! Love it when the menus change, designs change, and this gcd has really been exciting! Even trips into towne can turn into lively mild flame wars that eventually subside into friend requests; but think about it. Everytime PL does this, the community unites, even though it may be against the devs or their ideas. The shy start to speak. The talkative ones back down and here what others have to say. Overall, theres good and bad, and I like looking at the good side :D

[KingFu]

Well said, I have been thinking, and a great solution may just be to increase health and mana pools (and possible armor), keep skill damage the same, and ramp up weapon damage to be your primary attack. So great stuff!

[Ellyidol]

Wow! This might be your longest post yet? :P

I agree, I'd love to see some passive skills in PL, would definitely add to the customization of each character (different builds, etc).

On the contrary though, I would probably keep my current skill points except 1-5 points to maximise GCD (no idle skills), that's only a few for passive skills.. Unless the ones they introduce are mainly 1 level only and you master it, but that'd mean you'd need a lot of options to be unique.

Nice one, Les!

[Tamino]

If you want active spells to take the backseat (for lag or whatever other reasons), give us passive skills and stronger weapons to make up for it.

Exactly. As lilbyrdie showd up in another thread, (passive) buff skills must be fired some seconds before running into mob group, thus the current effect duration is actually shortened (consider Evasion for birds or BoM "self" effect on Mages). For same reason (passive) debuffs are effective only against bosses/minibosses, the GCD (at least for me at this moment) makes the attack skills more favorite.

Major adjustment suggested: add some seconds duration to buff skills, extend range of the debuff ones.

[Slush]

completely off topic, but thats one hell of a beastly DD char xD

[Riccits]

les when u would play so much as helping out here...... ;)

[japanboy]

We need to know that we are paying a pocket game, cant make too much for forcing the GCD, before i played a PC game WOW World of Warcraft, it happen the problem when updates and also related with GCD, many people complains and many agrees, WOW pushing the game to Pro way, but i quit WOW because it push people a lot so cant stand so i quit playing WOW.

Now im started play PL, i really love it, because not to pushing to a Pro way, its kind of having fun, not hard to play like WOW, everyone can play have fun. One point need to consider is that we play PL at iphone, i pod and ipad instead on PC, people can play everywhere, this is an advantage.

One point very important that the Spacetime Studio need to consider, we play it in diferent Countries and the latency its not the same, if people lag + the GCD = totally die, imagine at a dungeon after this update the mages work become harder...the first day of the updates, many mages was complaining at the game about this GCD making them hard, coz they need to dps and heals and when got lag with latency makes them dont want to play more.

My opinion the GCD must regulate to an aceptable point, otherwise will starting lose many players, specially those only play for fun, making the game to the Professional way in a small pocket/ iphone/ ipod / ipad . I can play it in both way, but like this game because can play it for fun instead of so serious...

One more thing, i think the opinion to make people pay 1 plats to get alive with full health and mana alfter dead is bad... useless...im sorry but its a little stupid, just to gain money, and hope to fix the join the game throw the friend list as fast as you guys can, its makes us so unconfortable... And please add an option to close the sound of the emotes because some people is repetly making emotes.

[Lesrider]

Exactly. As lilbyrdie showd up in another thread, (passive) buff skills must be fired some seconds before running into mob group, thus the current effect duration is actually shortened (consider Evasion for birds or BoM "self" effect on Mages). For same reason (passive) debuffs are effective only against bosses/minibosses, the GCD (at least for me at this moment) makes the attack skills more favorite.

Major adjustment suggested: add some seconds duration to buff skills, extend range of the debuff ones.

To be clear, those aren't passive skills. Those are active skills that affect your stats, your team's stats, or your enemies' stats. Passive skills are always in effect, and don't require anything to be activated. So it would mean less buttons to press for those who have trouble getting used to the GCD.


les when u would play so much as helping out here...... ;)

I wanted to join you for a game to give the GCD a proper test, but didn't feel like going through the join game screen. I'll wait till the update comes through from Apple.


Wow! This might be your longest post yet? :P

I agree, I'd love to see some passive skills in PL, would definitely add to the customization of each character (different builds, etc).

On the contrary though, I would probably keep my current skill points except 1-5 points to maximise GCD (no idle skills), that's only a few for passive skills.. Unless the ones they introduce are mainly 1 level only and you master it, but that'd mean you'd need a lot of options to be unique.

Nice one, Les!

Lol yeah it might be my longest!

Well, the point of adding the passive skills would be to force people to choose between more skills, especially if they're not so comfortable using the GCD. Since Cinco said part of the reason for GCD was to force people to choose between skills -- at least give us something else in return. Right now, people have to make choices from skills they're used to using. So simply compensate with some other features so we don't feel like it's just being taken away from us.

And perhaps the simplest (albeit least creative) solution would be to increase all the skill caps to lvl 10 or so, so we can keep like 5-8 skills and toss the rest. But right now, you can max more skills than you migh be able to use.

Oh and Mystic, more mana at this point wouldn't really seem to help. I think we have too much m/s now as it is. :/

[Riccits]

I wanted to join you for a game to give the GCD a proper test, but didn't feel like going through the join game screen. I'll wait till the update comes through from Apple.


nanana....no excuses! u can just join my host by the game list :-P

[wvhills]

good post and good ideas. But I think people (including the devs) are spending a lot of time and energy trying to make the best of a bad situation (i.e. fix the problems of GCD) when the best and simplest fix is to just do away with it completely. The game was a lot more fun before. I don't know if anyone else is paying attention to the current "players onlline and games played" on the start up screen but I've noticed it's about half what it was before.

[StompArtist]

good post and good ideas. But I think people (including the devs) are spending a lot of time and energy trying to make the best of a bad situation (i.e. fix the problems of GCD) when the best and simplest fix is to just do away with it completely. The game was a lot more fun before. I don't know if anyone else is paying attention to the current "players onlline and games played" on the start up screen but I've noticed it's about half what it was before.

It is true that I noticed a lot less BS games to join yesterday.

[Wbto-Angeluscustos]

I liked PL, because you always had skills. A year ago i was getting over RS, and other online games where you had to have large cool downs for special attacks etc. I got into pvp on here- quickly making combos, debuffing and knowing which skill to use when and to do it quickly. So for those who have played this game since the beginning, and others who have logged many hours more than me, hitting your skills with gcd is awkward. I have to choose whetger to buff, debuff, or attack everytime. I think if PL must do gcd we need stronger weapons and passive skills like you sead les. And buffs and heals should not be included in gcd. Some passive ideas are to- archers speed, bears armor, elves hit etc. If we had other skills like mining, fishing etc, more passive skills would be added. We could also have skill trees like in Wow, ehere if you go dpwn on branch after putting in points you will get a spell, ir going down another and gettinh a different spell.


What im trying to say, if anything, is that i agree with you Les and think we need somethig to balance the awkwardness of GCD.

yeah it expremely awkward. now but im asumming we will all get used to it but like u and everyone else said i think that if gcd is to stay then a rebalance is for sure needed. :)

[Lesrider]

good post and good ideas. But I think people (including the devs) are spending a lot of time and energy trying to make the best of a bad situation (i.e. fix the problems of GCD) when the best and simplest fix is to just do away with it completely. The game was a lot more fun before. I don't know if anyone else is paying attention to the current "players onlline and games played" on the start up screen but I've noticed it's about half what it was before.

I agree, I prefer without the GCD. I find the two separate cooldowns too distracting. But since the devs seem hell-bent on keeping it, I'm offering ideas to make it more bearable. Basically, make the game less dependent on active skills.

Also, additions like passive skills would offer more individuality among players, even if they decide to chuck GCD.

[StompArtist]

I agree, I prefer without the GCD. I find the two separate cooldowns too distracting. But since the devs seem he'll-bent on keeping it, I'm offering ideas to make it more bearable. Basically, make the game less dependent on active skills.

Also, additions like passive skills would offer more individuality among players, even if they decide to chuck GCD.

I for one think that the aesthetics alone need to be reviewed: the way the cool down is shown (overwhelming shading and filling back up and colors reappearing) is next to have a huge blinking neon sign saying COOLDOWN ENGAGED! Should be discreet like in most other games (a little vertical bar like the weapon cool down (which is horizontal) would work).

[Lesrider]

I for one think that the aesthetics alone need to be reviewed: the way the cool down is shown (overwhelming shading and filling back up and colors reappearing) is next to have a huge blinking neon sign saying COOLDOWN ENGAGED! Should be discreet like in most other games (a little vertical bar like the weapon cool down (which is horizontal) would work).

That might be true, but I'm not sure how it can be improved. At the same time as it may be distracting, you also want it to be blatantly obvious when it's on cooldown, so you don't waste your time tapping.
So I'm not sure how they can find a happy medium -- I'll leave that up to the devs.

[miko57wang]

I just signed on to PL in my car while taking a quick stogie break from work. I used to time my breaks by doing a full round of plasma pyramid with time to spare, but now after a GCD even with a smooth group I found that I was late going back to work by 2 min. I understand the importance of a GCD so that you can't use all your skills at once such as WoW where a hunter has strong spammable skills... but this game where theres only a max of 12 total skills with a cooldown on each skill, this GCD is wayyyyyyyyy too long. I needs to be either shortened or even better removed completely. If its a PVP issue where the archer can blast someone dead, then fine add a gcd in pvp area but not on actual PVE content where the name of the game is to level.