Cooldown

A period of time when an action is not possible to use directly after it has been used.

Games typically provide players with many ways to affect the game state. Not all action possible can however be used all the time, and one way this is done in games is through simply requiring that a certain period of time transpires before the same kind of action is done again. Actions restricted in this way are said to have a Cooldown period, based upon the metaphor of it becoming overheated by being used and requiring some time to cool down again.

Examples

World of Warcraft has Cooldowns linked to many spells, abilities, and powers of items. One common example is the Hearthstones players are given which allows them to teleport their home location - these can only be used every 30 minutes. Some of these Cooldown effects apply not only to the ability used but ones related by being provided by similar items or being class abilities.

Many of the primary attacks that special infected can do in Left 4 Dead series have Cooldown periods associated with them, and this makes players have to consider when to use them.

Using the pattern

Creating Cooldown in games basically consists of choosing which actions or abilities should be assigned Time Limits before they can be used again. Since this temporarily gives players Decreased Abilities, Cooldowns can be seen as a combination of these two patterns.

Any actions can be the target of Cooldown restrictions, but commonly these are applied to Privileged Actions (for Balancing purposes), Tools and Installations.

Stimulated Planning Non-Player Help No-Ops Action Caps Varied Gameplay Downtime

Cooldown can be used to link various Game Items together. Shared Cooldowns restricts not only the use of actions just performed but some set of other actions as well, an example from World of Warcraft being that the use of an Earth Elemental Totem restricts the use of an Fire Elemental Totem for 2 minutes and vice versa (they also have individual Cooldown periods of 10 minutes). The kind of Cooldowns are typically restricted to Privileged Actions since they can work on these without breaking Diegetic Consistency. Global Cooldowns (also found in World of Warcraft) apply to most of a players actions, and can be seen as adding a minimum Cooldown to all actions except when followed by one of a few specific actions.

Making actions into Extended Actions has several similarities with linking Cooldown periods to them, and these may be considered instead. They may also make sense to be combine in some cases, e.g. by having Global Downtime on all actions but making some of these actually enforce Downtime.

Interface Aspects

Since it may be of vital importance for players to know when they can use actions again, the time remaining of Cooldown periods are typically shown through Game State Indicators.

Consequences

Balancing Effects Hovering Closures

The use of Global Cooldowns can be seen as a way of making the gameplay similar to that of Tick-Based Games.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Tick-Based Games

Can Modulate

Installations, Privileged Actions, Tools

Can Be Instantiated By

Decreased Abilities together with Time Limits

Can Be Modulated By

Game State Indicators

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

References

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Acknowledgements

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