Hitting 5 times in 0.5 seconds

Shardaxx · January 2016

ok so I've seen this before, but please ZOS can you sort out the loophole whatever it is that allows some players to deliver 5 or 6 attacks in almost zero time? Asking around its due to "animation cancelling" but however they are doing it, its just getting ridiculous.

Today in cyrodiil I got jumped by a NB and died in about 0.5 seconds, checking the combat log they hit me with:

Heavy Attack, Heavy Attack (Dual Wield), Surprise Attack, Surprise Attack, Surprise Attack, all in less than a second.

My heavy attacks take longer than that entire sequence to do, so how is this possible to deliver these attacks so quickly? Sort this out ZOS its just so annoying.

sirrmattus · January 2016

Shardaxx wrote: »

ok so I've seen this before, but please ZOS can you sort out the loophole whatever it is that allows some players to deliver 5 or 6 attacks in almost zero time? Asking around its due to "animation cancelling" but however they are doing it, its just getting ridiculous.

Today in cyrodiil I got jumped by a NB and died in about 0.5 seconds, checking the combat log they hit me with:

Heavy Attack, Heavy Attack (Dual Wield), Surprise Attack, Surprise Attack, Surprise Attack, all in less than a second.

My heavy attacks take longer than that entire sequence to do, so how is this possible to deliver these attacks so quickly? Sort this out ZOS its just so annoying.

ur exaggerating pretty hard there.. im sure it was 1 second

Molag_Crow · January 2016

It's a real plague that just gets ignored and anybody who speaks up about it, is told to L2P.

Robbmrp · January 2016

One of the Thieves guild updates is hopefully going to address this very issue. Hopefully that means we will be able to see every attack that we are hit with. We won't know for sure until the details are out. Gina has already stated they AREN'T removing Animation Cancelling also. Hopefully we'll be able to see any attack that does damage to us.

Base Game Patch Features & Content

A 64-bit client for PC and Mac
Improvements to grouping including incentives and cross-alliance grouping outside of the Grouping Tool
Tons of combat and gameplay balance changes
Scrolling combat text (SCT)
Improvements and updates to Cyrodiil and its campaigns
Access to content from other alliances in any order you choose upon reaching Veteran Rank 1
Prioritization of animations during combat
Improved facial animations for Mac
…and more!

Voxicity · January 2016

Latency?

tinythinker · January 2016

sirrmattus wrote: »

Shardaxx wrote: »

ok so I've seen this before, but please ZOS can you sort out the loophole whatever it is that allows some players to deliver 5 or 6 attacks in almost zero time? Asking around its due to "animation cancelling" but however they are doing it, its just getting ridiculous.

Today in cyrodiil I got jumped by a NB and died in about 0.5 seconds, checking the combat log they hit me with:

Heavy Attack, Heavy Attack (Dual Wield), Surprise Attack, Surprise Attack, Surprise Attack, all in less than a second.

My heavy attacks take longer than that entire sequence to do, so how is this possible to deliver these attacks so quickly? Sort this out ZOS its just so annoying.

ur exaggerating pretty hard there.. im sure it was 1 second

There is the set-up time of the attacker and the impact time on the victim. If you are on the receiving end of some combinations, it does hit more or less all at once. Some of it may be animation cancelling, some may be lag. Can't say what it would look like time-wise as the target for the combo given above, but even a whole second is a bit ridiculous

Shardaxx wrote: »

Sort this out ZOS its just so annoying.

Based on everything ZOS has (and hasn't) said, I doubt such insta-death attacks are ever going away completely. Best thing to do is to help people to understand how to increase their damage mitigation/defensive response.

Robbmrp · January 2016

tinythinker wrote: »

sirrmattus wrote: »

Shardaxx wrote: »

ok so I've seen this before, but please ZOS can you sort out the loophole whatever it is that allows some players to deliver 5 or 6 attacks in almost zero time? Asking around its due to "animation cancelling" but however they are doing it, its just getting ridiculous.

Today in cyrodiil I got jumped by a NB and died in about 0.5 seconds, checking the combat log they hit me with:

Heavy Attack, Heavy Attack (Dual Wield), Surprise Attack, Surprise Attack, Surprise Attack, all in less than a second.

My heavy attacks take longer than that entire sequence to do, so how is this possible to deliver these attacks so quickly? Sort this out ZOS its just so annoying.

ur exaggerating pretty hard there.. im sure it was 1 second

There is the set-up time of the attacker and the impact time on the victim. If you are on the receiving end of some combinations, it does hit more or less all at once. Some of it may be animation cancelling, some may be lag. Can't say what it would look like time-wise as the target for the combo given above, but even a whole second is a bit ridiculous

Shardaxx wrote: »

Sort this out ZOS its just so annoying.

Based on everything ZOS has (and hasn't) said, I doubt such insta-death attacks are ever going away completely. Best thing to do is to help people to understand how to increase their damage mitigation/defensive response.

And switch to the 0 CP Campaigns when they come out.

Wollust · January 2016

3 surprise attack in 0.5 seconds is an impossible thing to do. No matter what. So it's more likely due to latency or a wrong sense of time.

danno8 · January 2016

Shardaxx wrote: »

ok so I've seen this before, but please ZOS can you sort out the loophole whatever it is that allows some players to deliver 5 or 6 attacks in almost zero time? Asking around its due to "animation cancelling" but however they are doing it, its just getting ridiculous.

Today in cyrodiil I got jumped by a NB and died in about 0.5 seconds, checking the combat log they hit me with:

Heavy Attack, Heavy Attack (Dual Wield), Surprise Attack, Surprise Attack, Surprise Attack, all in less than a second.

My heavy attacks take longer than that entire sequence to do, so how is this possible to deliver these attacks so quickly? Sort this out ZOS its just so annoying.

The dual wield heavy attacks happen at the same time, one for each hand. They just wound up first and the fight doesn't start until they hit you. Heavy attacks can be animation cancelled with any skill so the first surprise attack will hit at almost exactly the same time as the heavy attacks.

The second Surprise Attack will have to wait for 1 second for the GCD on the first SA to expire (although they could have Bashed you in that time to complete the animation cancel trio). So the second SA can hit you at the 1 second mark if all goes as planned.

The third surprise attack again, has to wait for 1 GCD to expire, so there is no way that one could have hit you in the 0-1 second time frame, unless lag is a factor.

Now imagine if that person also had Camo Hunter up and running. That could potentially hit you 2 times in that first second also...

jim_mau · January 2016

i think that "Removing" animation cancelling is not entirely up to Zos since they have accepted that they didnt plan on it happening in the first place... its just a fix to make the accepted bug less problematic..

Toc de Malsvi · January 2016

Latency, lag, this is not doable even with animation cancelling. Animation Cancelling only allows you to clip somewhere between 0.5 to 0.7 of the animation of an ability animation in order to do something like bash the target. By leading with a light or heavy attack into the ability and then cancelling you can get a heavy attack, ability, and bash all within 1 second to land. However animation cancelling will not allow you to get off another ability in that same time frame. Thus for three Sneak Attacks to have struck you seemingly at once, I would suggest that you are experiencing Lag from a latency issue or packet loss.

You can always get one light attack, one instant cast ability, one bash, and block all within one second, and this combo can be repeated in many forms along with using dodge roll or weapon swap to cancel animations rather than bash or block. Heavy attacks can always be used to open, and medium weaves work very well with abilities that have a cast time, you can activate the ability and immediately start a heavy attack releasing for a medium attack as soon as the ability finishes its cast time.

The abilities themselves though have roughly a one second CD so all animation cancelling is doing is allowing you to clip a portion of the animation to do things such as bash, block, weapon swap, and dodge roll during the same period of time thus allowing you to chain together light attack/ability/bash combo's. Some abilities like Meteor, or snipe have a rather long flight time, which means you can use them to set up kills by activating them before you start your heavy attack/ability/bash combo.

What animation cancelling has done to PVP is mostly grief those with poor latency or other issues related to lag. It has also partially attributed to the decline of the worth of DOT(damage over time) effects as getting effective burst with AC within 3-4 seconds means not relying on DOTs for any meaningful damage.

It is important to note that ESO's combat framework will always be a bit more punishing to poor latency as it requires immediate active and reactive gameplay that is not friendly to those with Lag issues. All PVP is punishing to those with poor internet speeds however games like WoW that have block and dodge as base character stats not as an action are far less punishing.

Forestd16b14_ESO · January 2016

Robbmrp wrote: »

One of the Thieves guild updates is hopefully going to address this very issue. Hopefully that means we will be able to see every attack that we are hit with. We won't know for sure until the details are out. Gina has already stated they AREN'T removing Animation Cancelling also. Hopefully we'll be able to see any attack that does damage to us.

Base Game Patch Features & Content

A 64-bit client for PC and Mac
Improvements to grouping including incentives and cross-alliance grouping outside of the Grouping Tool
Tons of combat and gameplay balance changes
Scrolling combat text (SCT)
Improvements and updates to Cyrodiil and its campaigns
Access to content from other alliances in any order you choose upon reaching Veteran Rank 1
Prioritization of animations during combat
Improved facial animations for Mac
…and more!

Uh no they are removing the animation of animation cancellation but the mechanic it self will still be there and exploited. So you'll see say WB or crystal frags but on the death recap it be WB light attack WB light attack and so on. Or from what I am understanding which to me is BS. Have the time and manpower to change the animation but not the coding to remove it.

GreenSoup2HoT · January 2016

Duel Wield heavy attack and 1 surprise attack can be hit at the same time. Duel Wield heavy attack's are technically one attack, one for each weapon.

Then after you got stunned he hit you 2 more time's.

I'm betting you got a lag spike right when he engaged.

HeroOfNone · January 2016

Animation canceling would only save off a second off the senario describing, where the 2nd heavy attack could be do simultaneously with the surprise attack.

0 second: Heavy Attack,
1 second: Heavy Attack (Dual Wield)
1 second: Surprise Attack
2 second: Surprise Attack
3 second: Surprise Attack

This is because light/heavy attacks are on the same global cooldowns and abilities are on another. It's not a 1 second cooldown, just rounding up to simplify.

Now, if you really believe these all hit in less than half a second then you'd likely see no animations, or only one, and the sounds would over lsp, did you see that, or did you hear each individual attack? If you heard each one you're likely under-exaggerating the time that passed, that sound and animation it's self is over .5 seconds and seeing all three without any glitch in the animation shows that.

Whether you believe me or not, try recording your pvp and reach it, see if it was actually thst short. If it wasthen send it to support as exploiters. There are ways folks can exploit and stack a bunch of abilities at once, but it involves a lag switch, not a macro or any kind super animation cancel skill.

Decayed_Inside · January 2016

I agree it's plain stupid and this is where all the imbalance in ESO is the dev just refuse to acknowledge it. They can nerf anything they want as long as this is in game it will be imbalanced. It's doesn't make the game "dynamic and fluid" it makes it imbalanced. People do use it with lag switches as well it's all too common in gaming now. Do you really think Azura lags that bad just because? It's like 50 lag switches at once

nilldax · January 2016

Trick of more attacks that "intended", sits in macro'ed (most often) Surprice Attack followed by weapon change. Yes, my character was stomped by this numerous times. Keep in mind that weapon swap doesnt have delay like medium/light attack -> SA (or Low Slash) -> bash combination.

leepalmer95 · January 2016

It's the fact that even if they open with a heavy attack and then surprise attack you because of the cancel you'll still get the stun from a stealth SA.

So in order:

0 seconds : Heavy x2
0.1 seconds : SA

Stun

1 second : SA
2 second : SA

Heavy/SA hits the time same you get stunned and then before you break free you get SA again.

lolo_01b16_ESO · January 2016

leepalmer95 wrote: »

It's the fact that even if they open with a heavy attack and then surprise attack you because of the cancel you'll still get the stun from a stealth SA.

So in order:

0 seconds : Heavy x2
0.1 seconds : SA

Stun

1 second : SA
2 second : SA

Heavy/SA hits the time same you get stunned and then before you break free you get SA again.

If you attack from stealth and your target doesn't use radiant mage light, the heavy attack will stun him, even without performing a SA afterwards.

MisterBigglesworth · January 2016

ESO is an MMO that thinks it's an FPS but doesn't have the solid netcode to back it up.

When developing an MMO, one of the concessions you're supposed to make (and 99% of MMO developers do this) is make the combat slower and the time-to-kill longer, in order to offset the inevitable rubberbanding you'll get with these types of games.

For some reason ZOS thinks they can ignore this basic tenet of MMO design.

HeroOfNone · January 2016

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

ESO is an MMO that thinks it's an FPS but doesn't have the solid netcode to back it up.

When developing an MMO, one of the concessions you're supposed to make (and 99% of MMO developers do this) is make the combat slower and the time-to-kill longer, in order to offset the inevitable rubberbanding you'll get with these types of games.

For some reason ZOS thinks they can ignore this basic tenet of MMO design.

I belive they have realized part of this, we see this with the battle spirit reducing damage by 50%. The problem is recovery is way too easy on the other end and we don't have a solid way to lock this down. Other MMOS would have things like stun locks, special gear to burst pvp damage, or limit resource recovery. Because ESO has fast regen they reduce mitigation so a burst build can out dps the heals, which leads to instagib.

In my opinion they can fix this by addressing the high resource regen. Maybe do a reduction of natural regens & heavy attack regen through battle spirit? Or they can give ways to debuff resources? Either way they can then up mitigation & we could see some more interesting fights. Imagine a quarter of the damage we see now but with 50-75% regen reductions. How long would these fights go? Would they be prevented from an easy recovery?

abhimat1999rwb17_ESO · January 2016

I've been hit by 3 consecutive SA's as well once when i was in IC sewers. There was no lag and the guy i was pursuing just turns back and i'm dead instantly with my recap showing 3 SAs within that second. There was no stun or whatsoever coz i was dead instantly. I was wondering myself that 3 SAs should atleast take 2s but somehow that happened.

Decayed_Inside · January 2016

Heavy attack>SA>block

diskiukas · January 2016

Oh surprise attack is nothing, many times I was looking at my death recap after being killed in second or so and I would see 3 Wrecking Blows registered delivered to me with love by the same player. I move a lot and have experience of PVP since release and to even get caught with 3 Wrecking Blows in a row is highly unusual. Lag actually works opposite, you dont take any damage at all at first. I know how death works when you are lagging, it's not the case in here.

Idinuse · January 2016

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And the accompanying software. Takes Animation Canceling to new highs. In fact Animation Canceling is a condition for this to be working in the first place. No channelling skills need to apply.

One of the main reasons lag gets screwed is because so many attacks are going off at once. The other being scripts.

Also considered cheating and is against the ToS (hardware/software giving a player an advantage over others).

LadyNalcarya · January 2016

It was a macro... Even some so-called "Great Warlords" in certain EU campaigns are using that to kill you with 5-7 attacks in 1 second.
But looks like this is gonna be fixed in the next patch, and I'm really happy about that.

Jhunn · January 2016

Too many people exaggerating numbers to make this seem worse than it is. 5 times in 0,5 seconds, I call bulls*it

Idinuse · January 2016

Jhunn wrote: »

Too many people exaggerating numbers to make this seem worse than it is. 5 times in 0,5 seconds, I call bulls*it

5 in 1,5-2 seconds would be, and is, bad enough.

I don't even know how many screenshots I have of 5 skills from 1 user with FTC log visible all 5 hitting off within i.e. 17:30:20-17:30:21 (4) 17:30:22 5th.

We should also consider that the first time stamp might i.e. be 17:30:20:58 and the last 17:30:22:01, but FTC only shows seconds not 10ths/100s of a second, it's not a race clock after all.

The majority of my deaths with death caps like this are either when I'm immobilized by CC or being hit from behind or the side, where I don't see it coming. It happens straight in the face at times too, but I'd say 80-90% of death caps that look like the example comes when it would be "safe" to shoot of a 4-5 hit sequence with 1 button or 2x2 hit sequences with 2 buttons. Usually starting with a gap closer that CCs and is unbreakable.

In the rare event that I survive such a burst, the attacker usually suddenly seems lost and is fairly quickly taken down, (usually followed by a hate tell telling me that if I hadn't gotten off that barrier or spammed my OP heals he'd be drinking margaritas from my skull or equivalent), but the latter definitely depends on the general skill of the player.

To sum it up, independently of lag, one sound of a hit for ~5 skills hitting and then death.

Gilvoth · January 2016

Vox wrote: »

Latency?

that is honestly the answer.
i thought before that it was from hax, or even animation canceling and even thought for a time it was macro cheats. but its just plain lagg and latency. you can see it also when you see people running. all of a sudden the entire group stands still, i go stand next to them wondering why not moving then all of a sudden everyone JUTS far ahead.
same thing - latency and lagg. nothing more.

Idinuse · January 2016

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

Vox wrote: »

Latency?

that is honestly the answer.
i thought before that it was from hax, or even animation canceling and even thought for a time it was macro cheats. but its just plain lagg and latency. you can see it also when you see people running. all of a sudden the entire group stands still, i go stand next to them wondering why not moving then all of a sudden everyone JUTS far ahead.
same thing - latency and lagg. nothing more.

*nose bridge pinch*

leepalmer95 · January 2016

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

Vox wrote: »

Latency?

that is honestly the answer.
i thought before that it was from hax, or even animation canceling and even thought for a time it was macro cheats. but its just plain lagg and latency. you can see it also when you see people running. all of a sudden the entire group stands still, i go stand next to them wondering why not moving then all of a sudden everyone JUTS far ahead.
same thing - latency and lagg. nothing more.

*sigh*

Decayed_Inside · January 2016

Isn't it pretty coincidental that the "latency" always seems to happen when certain players are around?