Game design choices #1 Timer versus fed systems

Welcome to another topic where it's basically design choices of Overwatch versus TF2.

Timer
A timer system is basic, easy to balance; making it where for the more abilities with timers the more complex and annoying it becomes. This has it where less skill requirements are needing to learn how to effectively use an item and keeps match ups relatively balanced. This also gives easy to understand data for knowing if a skill is on too short of a timer or not.

This makes it where the player is rewarded for surviving and waiting for the bar to fill.

Feed system
This is where things like x amount of damage need to be performed or y amount of healing but often for balance reasons these items are still on a passive fill (usually); for the most part this is harder to balance because something like have this do x damage before it will fill to full will turn it into a soft snowball item with it's next recharge being around the corner, that the more damage that player can get off for free the more it charges; as thus making it harder to know if it's balanced or not.

A feed system however has it where you can increase the ceiling for the cost making it where you only reward x playstyle and as thus the player will keep doing it getting more and more rewards from it because of this. On the other hand you have it where other weapons will feed into said system such as an outside item fulfilling the requirement or an ally damage boosting your resource meter by giving you mini crits to deal to enemies then you have it where team work is rewarded and giving you weapons and items that synergize too well together with nerfing one item leading to the build being useless or only making it slightly less broken while the actual problem child is left un-nerfed.

However a feed system rewards good play, for the most part and can show where your design choices are leading the player.

This can lead the item to snowballing out of control however if the player is good enough; said issues leading to the game with a lead so far ahead that some games have hard caps or soft caps for the given system.

Conclusion
Both systems have their time and place and depending on what you choose can make or break your game. Do you want a more casual audience? Go for the timer only system, want an audience that's more rewarded for being good at the game? Choose the feed system.

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