Cast time on class ultimates

Legendry

Hey zos, this question has been bothering me lately. I'm a fan of coherence in fantasy environments. So how come incapacitating strike, Wich is a melee range strike and a class ultimate gets 0,4 seconds delay; and DK leaps, Wich involve a being growing wings, jumping in the air, landing 20 meters away and doing huge undodgable aoe damage is instant. How should be this difference understood?

Vlad9425

Because they’re clueless and don’t play their own game. We’ve had no cast time on ultimates for years and it was fine but out of the blue they just implemented this ridiculous change.

Kagukan

Cast times period are dumb. Remove cast times on everything and adjust the skills as needed.

Valykc

Kagukan wrote: »

Cast times period are dumb. Remove cast times on everything and adjust the skills as needed.

But then people might actually use crystal blast and we can’t have that!

Legendry

Don't mean to be rude, but we're trying to understand the logic behind ultimate cast times, not general skills cast times.

Skoomah

They extract data into a spreadsheet. Output a table and sort by cause of death. The skills, sets, and classes that get the most kills get reviewed for nerfs to balance them against the other classes.

This method, however, is flawed. They forget to take into account how the game actually plays and flows.

Plus, if a dev dies to a certain thing, they will nerf whatever that is. It’s a superficial way of changing the game. The devs are also reluctant to change their sacred cow classes.

5cript

The cast times on ults have to go, especially in laggy environments, you have to wait way too long to not accidentally cancel it.

Nerftheforums

Cast times are the shittiest thing I ever saw implemented in this game. And I saw the rise of the cp system, the procalypse and morrowind...just saying.

Ragnarock41

The developer's logic here is to provide a window of counterplay, the issue in the implementation is that the cast times are a tad too long, breaking the flow of combat.

I've been playing around with dbos and onslaught a lot lately and the only time this truly annoys me is when I want to animation cancel or bar swap, Its such an old habit to animation cancel abilities that it feels unnatural to just use an ability the normal way now.

Also one thing that makes the issue worse is the return of tank meta. Since the window of kill is so small against good players you kinda need every little opportunity to fit in another bash or light attack, or make a fast bar swap to use something important to your pressure like reaplying your dots, stun,buffs etc...

Also defensive abilities / ultimates not having this type of drawback is contributing to the problem. Resetting a fight is much easier than landing a killing blow that fights are all about who goes out of sustain first. Its not good game design.

SmukkeHeks

Cast time on my bow ultimate will one day result in me hammering through my keyboard

*hammering away in blind panic as the enemy singles me out* “DO YOU GET IT NOW!!!” 🙄

Gilvoth

i hope they never change, im lovin the new cast times.
and i know im not alone in that because all my friends, all my guild mates and even zone chat people talk about using them and enjoying the change and how it can be used to trick opponents in pvp with the timing of the ultimates as well as other methods now available because of the cast times.
and "no" im not joking, serious post, honest feedback.

brandonv516

These cast times are doing nothing but causing frustration.

It's cute that some people think they are more effective now that you can "trick" enemy players.

The largest offense of this change is that they are supposed to be uninterruptible.

They are most definitely NOT with even a little lag. It gives the impression that you are being interrupted when someone lands a hard CC at the same time you cast an ultimate.

They should be reverted.

oXI_Viper_IXo

Gilvoth wrote: »

i hope they never change, im lovin the new cast times.
and i know im not alone in that because all my friends, all my guild mates and even zone chat people talk about using them and enjoying the change and how it can be used to trick opponents in pvp with the timing of the ultimates as well as other methods now available because of the cast times.
and "no" im not joking, serious post, honest feedback.

You keep claiming this, yet you never go into detail. Good luck "tricking" (whatever that means) any halfway decent players.

universal_wrath

Valykc wrote: »

Kagukan wrote: »

Cast times period are dumb. Remove cast times on everything and adjust the skills as needed.

But then people might actually use crystal blast and we can’t have that!

If you want put a cast time on ultimate, put a cast time on all ultimates, atleast the cheap once, and keep the expensive onse without cast time.

Legendry wrote: »

Hey zos, this question has been bothering me lately. I'm a fan of coherence in fantasy environments. So how come incapacitating strike, Wich is a melee range strike and a class ultimate gets 0,4 seconds delay; and DK leaps, Wich involve a being growing wings, jumping in the air, landing 20 meters away and doing huge undodgable aoe damage is instant. How should be this difference understood?

While leap does not have a cast time to at it is not instant. Once you use it, you cannot animation cancel it and puts you in its animation which take few mili secs about the same as incap cast time same as streak and other gap closers.

Expert

Cast time is the worst thing that has happened for everyone to experience fluid gameplay. My dawnbreaker on magsorc doesn't hit hard, but half second channel just makes diverse ultimates die off any not run these things because we have instant cast atronach and overload. A lot of people prefer onslaught over dawnbreaker , but this whole game is really going downhill. There was a very strong majority vote that we never wanted cast times, but ZoS forced it upon us and said look. We're not the ears and eyes of our community, we're your boss. Imagine paying for a game and not being respected like a customer.

The best key to any thriving game is to listen and follow what the community wants, and since this whole audit ordeal took place, the population has been dying off because the audit was against our will or majority were not in favor of the changes.

Since Faction lock to cast times on ultimate, to standardizing every ability between classes to make them all identical in healing power, dps power, and whatnot, they've killed identity along with it and now their own community.

These are 3 of the MAJOR things that destroyed the population, and sadly we have no transparency on the audit because they are always under NDA as an excuse to not listen or work or test thoroughly with the community. That's like me taking away ur favorite ability, and ur like wtf ZoS why, and then i just say because it's in the audit bruh. I don't tell you the reason, I just shift the blame on the audit. And who made the audit? The ZoS team behind closed doors. That's how you know they're not for us but for themselves.

They may not like that image, but they will just simply ignore any feedback aswell. Change my mind

Wheresthetea11

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Adding cast times to Ultimates appears to be a change most people here have reacted negatively to. Why are these cast times being added? What issue is the team attempting to solve with this change?
Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much. You also can’t animation cancel them because we don’t want players to be able to instantly cast them anymore. They are just too powerful.

There you go. That’s why. Too powerful. Didn’t have counter play.

Rianai

Chickf1lGay wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Adding cast times to Ultimates appears to be a change most people here have reacted negatively to. Why are these cast times being added? What issue is the team attempting to solve with this change?
Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much. You also can’t animation cancel them because we don’t want players to be able to instantly cast them anymore. They are just too powerful.

There you go. That’s why. Too powerful. Didn’t have counter play.

Which does not make sense at all, considering ...

1. they added a cast time to one of the worst ultimates in the game - which wasn't even used when it was instant.
2. they also put a cast time onto a defensive ult (but only to one) where adding counterplay defeats the whole purpose of the skill.
3. most of the affected ultimates have been nerfed before the cast time got added, making them weaker than they have ever been, after beeing deemed ok for years.
4. adding the cast time doesn't even stop " 3-4 abilities hitting you at once".

Adding those cast times has been an absolute garbage change and they are probably only keeping it - despite overwhelmingly negative feedback - because they don't want to admit their failure. Which is stupid.

Wheresthetea11

Rianai wrote: »

Chickf1lGay wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Adding cast times to Ultimates appears to be a change most people here have reacted negatively to. Why are these cast times being added? What issue is the team attempting to solve with this change?
Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much. You also can’t animation cancel them because we don’t want players to be able to instantly cast them anymore. They are just too powerful.

There you go. That’s why. Too powerful. Didn’t have counter play.

Which does not make sense at all, considering ...

1. they added a cast time to one of the worst ultimates in the game - which wasn't even used when it was instant.
2. they also put a cast time onto a defensive ult (but only to one) where adding counterplay defeats the whole purpose of the skill.
3. most of the affected ultimates have been nerfed before the cast time got added, making them weaker than they have ever been, after beeing deemed ok for years.
4. adding the cast time doesn't even stop " 3-4 abilities hitting you at once".

Adding those cast times has been an absolute garbage change and they are probably only keeping it - despite overwhelmingly negative feedback - because they don't want to admit their failure. Which is stupid.

I completely agree man, just throwin out the quote to show what’s goin through the dev minds regarding the issue. Absolutely hate cast times on ults but the devs seem to believe there wasn’t any counter play.

AMeanOne

Cast times are garbage, but zos are balancing for garbage players.

Gilvoth

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Adding cast times to Ultimates appears to be a change most people here have reacted negatively to. Why are these cast times being added? What issue is the team attempting to solve with this change?
Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much. You also can’t animation cancel them because we don’t want players to be able to instantly cast them anymore. They are just too powerful.

this makes sense and is also another reason why we Love the change, i hope it stays that way and i know for a fact all my friends, Guild mates and even people in zone chat talk the same way.

AMeanOne wrote: »

Cast times are garbage, but zos are balancing for garbage players.

we Love the changes. and does that make us Garbage players like you claim in your comment?
no, it means we think differently and that does not make us "Garbage"
it means you don't like the change so you and a few of your friends decide to insult us because we think and play differently than you do.

Davadin

Legendry wrote: »

Hey zos, this question has been bothering me lately. I'm a fan of coherence in fantasy environments. So how come incapacitating strike, Wich is a melee range strike and a class ultimate gets 0,4 seconds delay; and DK leaps, Wich involve a being growing wings, jumping in the air, landing 20 meters away and doing huge undodgable aoe damage is instant. How should be this difference understood?

because it already takes time to grow said wings, jump, and land again, often longer than 0.4 seconds.

in the case of your example of 20 meters, guess what?

it's probably closer to a full second.

Kagukan

"Adding cast times to Ultimates appears to be a change most people here have reacted negatively to. Why are these cast times being added? What issue is the team attempting to solve with this change?
Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much. You also can’t animation cancel them because we don’t want players to be able to instantly cast them anymore. They are just too powerful."

Curious, would you rather have cast time or ultimates/skills that are a little weaker than they are now with cast times?

brandonv516

we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much.

But you can still do this with some ultimates. So problem NOT solved.

susmitds

Gilvoth wrote: »

i hope they never change, im lovin the new cast times.
and i know im not alone in that because all my friends, all my guild mates and even zone chat people talk about using them and enjoying the change and how it can be used to trick opponents in pvp with the timing of the ultimates as well as other methods now available because of the cast times.
and "no" im not joking, serious post, honest feedback.

Can you get all friends, your guildmates who agree with you on cast times in Cyrodiil one of these days? I would love a new 1vX clip but it probably be 1v1, as nobody will show up.

UrbanMonk

And then there is problem of Holding block while trying to cast certain ultimate with cast time which just wont fire, and if you let go of block while you are at low health and try to use the ultimate, you are dead before the animation finishes.

For example, 2/3 players are Xv1 against me and I want to use soul teather while holding block, guess what I cant. Being able to use that ultimate instantly, I stun my opponents and get some heal at the same time reducing pressure and then getting my counter ready. With the cast times, ZOS killed my counter play. While the other 2/3 did not need any counter.

It has happened so many times, now just on my magblade but magden as well, Cast times combined with lag usually results in you ending up being dead.
counter to ultimate is not Cast Times but Garbage players learning to use their brain and play.

Joy_Division

Chickf1lGay wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Adding cast times to Ultimates appears to be a change most people here have reacted negatively to. Why are these cast times being added? What issue is the team attempting to solve with this change?
Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much. You also can’t animation cancel them because we don’t want players to be able to instantly cast them anymore. They are just too powerful.

There you go. That’s why. Too powerful. Didn’t have counter play.

When I read that I get quite a different impression. Namely: "We don;t care what our players feel. We're going to ram these changes through anyway."

Ragnarock41

Joy_Division wrote: »

Chickf1lGay wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Adding cast times to Ultimates appears to be a change most people here have reacted negatively to. Why are these cast times being added? What issue is the team attempting to solve with this change?
Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much. You also can’t animation cancel them because we don’t want players to be able to instantly cast them anymore. They are just too powerful.

There you go. That’s why. Too powerful. Didn’t have counter play.

When I read that I get quite a different impression. Namely: "We don;t care what our players feel. We're going to ram these changes through anyway."

Sounds about right.

Legendry

I keep thinking:"why do I keep using and supporting a broken product? Why do I keep paying for bad service? I should stop.

Delsskia

The cast times on Ultis are horrible and anyone who's ever stepped into Cyrodiil knows that we had cast times already due to pitiful server performance. Now when we smash the Ulti key 6, 8, 10... times trying to get it to fire, we have to hope that when it finally does, it lands where we intended it to.

Lag x cast time = lots of wasted Ultis.

khajiitNPC

Cast times were horrendous idea and should be reverted. Most likely won’t happen. That being said every offensive ultimate should have a cast time. Not what I personally want. But if they don’t revert they should at least make it “fair”.

oXI_Viper_IXo

Why does Incap have a cast time but not Onslaught? Why does Dawnbreaker have a cast time but not Dragon Leap?

Not only are cast times detrimental to fun, fast-paced combat, they are completely inconsistent with how they've been implemented.