That practically IS a cool down period....

I fear we may have misunderstood each other.

I doubt that Dragonshouts will be powered or controlled by any of the three stat meters - otherwise, people playing different ways will be penalized when using a basic "everyone has it" game mechanic. (i.e, if it's run by Magicka, spellcasters will have an advantage. If it's run by Stamina, warriors would have an advantage. etc, etc, etc.)


So, probably some sort of cooldown time. Of course, there's still plenty of questions - would the cooldown be short, but any dragonshout triggers it (can't use another shout); or long, but each Shout has it's own cooldown (can use several different ones in succession, but then have to wait awhile); based on elapsed time, or do you need to Rest; etc. Many ways to do it, and we don't know enough to speculate.

Yes. You are right. But which one would add immersion and be awesome and which one would not?

Possibly, my worry is that we'll see a "cooldown period" that is nothing more than a round timeclock that runs down (aka Starcraft II).

My apologies, was being facetious with that comment. You are correct, having dragon shouts controlled by the stat meters would not work.

It depends.

Are dragon shout cooldowns all linked to each other or separate?

For the record, and the developers are most likely taking this into account, gameplay aside, thu'um users are traditionally cast as ridiculously powerful. To give a bit of perspective, the last time it was used by the Greybeards and so forth, entire villages in the local area had to be cleared in preparation.

But yes, no one wants total insta-kill gameplay all of the time, ala Morrowind endgame.

Short cooldown on all shouts and a longer one on the specific shout used.

I hpoe the cooldowns are easy to remove from the construction set

That they did, and I'd say varying it depending on the strength of the shout you use. That just makes sense, if stronger shouts and weaker shouts have the same cool down period, there's absolutely no reason to even consider using the weaker one if you can use the stronger one. I'd also say aside from the level of the shout, it should also take into account which shout you use, Because certain shouts could become unbalancing if you can use them with the same frequency as some other shouts, for that matter, for some shouts, that might not even be necessary.

Regardless, though, it's important to find just the right cooldown time for shouts, if you make it too short, it's unbalancing, but make it too long, and you end up never using them, because you're always wanting to save them for "just the right moment". I get this problem with "greater" powers a lot. Since I can only use them once a day, I generally don't use them at all even if I encounter circumstances where I could benefit from them. After all, the fight against three minotaurs and two ogres may seem like a good time to use the power that will temporarily make me stronger, but if I use it now, I might not be able to use it again if I encounter a situation with an even more pressing need for it. No matter what Bethesda does, it has to be just right, or it causes problems.

And I wonder about the question Bodycool brought up too, does using a shout prevent you from using any further shouts during the cool-down period, or just that particular shout?

all that stuff you listed sounds boring, unfun, or just forgetten/unused (like most of Oblivion/Morrowind 1 day greater powers)

I'm glad you aren't part of bethesda. :tongue:

:mage: <---- The End-result of Long Cooldowns.

In all seriousness though, i am all for a Long Cooldown, i dont want to be spamming the shouts

I'd say a global cooldown on all shouts of 15~ seconds, and a 30 second CD on the actual shout used.

I say the Shout used should be done for the day, and the rest are unable to be used for 2-3 minutes