First, let me say the decision of adding a cool-down period for the use of dragonshouts is a wise one. Otherwise, you'll probably be invurnerable. But the point of the topic is the idea of how long the periods will last. I hope it's not like the racial powers where you can only use then once per day...but I doubt they will be. I'm hoping they'll be somewhere around 30 seconds.

Didnt they say that depending on which level of the shout you use, the cool-down will vary?

that makes sense.

if you use a baby version of it, you should be able to use it again very soon but if you are caught in a real tough spot and use a big version then maybe you cant use it for the rest of the day-

Todd said that each shout has three different levels, if you use the strongest level of the shout the cooldown will be much longer.

Judging by how powerful dragon shouts are hyped up to be, I expect the most powerful to be like Greater Powers. Once per in-game day.

Agree thats work well, low levels ones can have small cool down 0-10 seconds just like casting speed for spell, more powerful will have longer one 5-10 minutes, highest level once per day.
Interesting can Dragon Shouts exhaust character fatigue?

Perhaps it depends on the shout. The one in the trailer ('force push') doesn't really look thát powerful. If it just pushes enemies back on the highest level, I can see it being used again after a minute or two. If it actually damages your enemies, it should be like a greater power. But the other two we (or at least I) know of, the slow time and summon dragon shout, look to be much more powerful to me. They would classify as greater powers much sooner than the force push shout.

+1

Sounds good to me. Imho even the weakest should recharge over minutes, not seconds, this needs to be as far from normal magic use for thieves and warriors as possible.

Off topic, but this reminds me, was watching repeats of Russel Howard's Good News on Dave last night, had a Kim Yong Il propaganda song, with the lyrics "when he shouts loud, the mountains tremble." How do you say "thinks he's dragonborn" in Korean?

I would prefer less powerful shouts with a shorter cool down. In oblivion the Arena was just playing as a Nord, easily winning with my greater powers and then waiting 24 hours.

i dont want it to recharge too quickly and i dont want it turn into waiting for hours

15 or 20 minutes for the stronger shouts would be enough. Basically, once per battle, as if it would be longer, you would just wait and rest until it recharges...

As long as it corresponds with the enemies you fight so that it is still useful, recharge time shouldn't be a problem in my book. E.g. Clearing a dungeon could take 10 minutes of real time, and in that time you can fight many foes after one another with enough time to heal up between each fight, but can only use a dragon shout on the first? Sounds a bit too infrequent to me.

there strong though and there will be a whole array of them too so you could use a different one for each battle or situation

Once a day put them pretty much in the “too awesome to be used” category, as you can use it very rarely you either: Save them to later, forget about them or do not get the experience in how to use them so then you need them you use the wrong one.

Did any of you ever use the greater powers in Oblivion? Granted most of them was junk, but some sounds useful.

Oh yeah. Totally didn't think about that!

I reckon just a "Dragonshout Meter" will be good enough. Just something that slowly recharges like the magicka bar and different shouts at different magnitudes have different values of dragonshout essence. Then you're restricted by the recharge rate, but can still use 1 weak magnitude dragonshout a number of times in a row if necessary.



Nope. Never found it necessary. Risks of not having it when I needed it later outweighed the benefit of using it then and there.

I can't vote, since the cooldowns depend on the level of the Dragonshout being used. (Tier 1,2, or 3; Which has been confirmed for awhile.)

I voted for 2-5 minutes, but voted for 5 specifically. I think a dragon shout should only be used once every battle, give or take. So they can turn the tide of battles, but with 5 minutes being an estimate of a normal battle length you can't spam them constantly in the same battle. If a battle lasts longer then great, use it again. This way they stay special, but not useless.

Also, does each power have it's own cooldown? Or is it just a common "pool", so any shout causes a cooldown for all?

Edit: I didn't read Bukee's post, but I'm on the same page as him. I guess 5 mins might be good for the weakest ones, then ten, then fifteen? But same idea.0

im going to assume that shouts are a bit more powerful than regular spells so im guessing that the babyshout should have a cooldown of at least a couple of minutes, figure a half hour or so for the midlevel on and i agree that the most powerful one should be once per day. id also like to see a penalty for using them from fatigue loss and reduction in mana regeneration for the more powerful ones.

The real question is if the cooldown meter is for all the shouts, or only for the shout you just used.

No way @ 10 seconds even for the weaker ones. You shouldnt be able to spam it multiple times in a short battle.

I think they should be used in "Oh [censored]" situations

Weakest: at least a minute. They should not be spammed, but they may be used in each battle. I am fine with 2-3 minutes even.
Moderate: about 2-5 minutes at least. For stronger enemies, once per battle, definitely not each battle. 10 minutes is probably better.
Strongest: at least 10 minutes, no more than 20-30 minutes. Add longer cooldowns and they will never be used, being stored "just in case".

Answer: since we haven't seen the Dragon Shout system in action, we can't possibly determine what a reasonable cooldown rate should be.

However, I'm pretty certain that the game designers will do their best to balance one of the central "big features" of their game to not be over or under-powered.

Well depending on the power I would say anywhere between 30 seconds to 30 minutes.
I'm not in favour of it being game based time (ie: every 24 hours).

Depending on the strength of the shout, (level 1 to 3) the cooldown will take a different time.

I think this is a very silly thing to vote on right now, since we have NO clue exactly how powerful they are. It's like asking how much magicka the first spell you learn should cost. When we have no clue what it would be or how magicka scales...

Cooldown periods....makes sense. When adding features that include a certain level of ridiculous fakery you might as well go full bore. No need to have some interesting play with attributes (since there are none). No need to create an intense and invigorating environment where dragon shout usage is both very powerful and potentially harmful to the user if overused or used incorrectly. No need to weigh the cost/benefits of using two shouts in rapid fire to vanquish that last foe but risk being laid up for a few minutes afterwards and having no stamina for a day or so because you overexerted yourself. No need for linkages between the different dragon shouts where you can used some shouts together but it would be harmful to use others together.... Let's just have cooldown periods. Yep. That sounds simple. :thumbsup:




Redundant. No point in doing that when you have 3 whole stat meters that can cover for it. :whistling: