The latest exploit with animation clipping

Yasha

Razzak wrote: »

TheBull wrote: »

Sensesfail13 wrote: »

TheBull wrote: »

SOP must be new...

Armitas wrote: »

I don't know whether it's macro or manual, but the TTL is too short with the current allowable/capable game mechanics. The picture below shows my death log while falling off a resource tower from the initial wrecking blow that you see. You can check my chat log to see the time stamps for each skill. 4 attacks occurring in 2 seconds I died before I reached the ground.

I had to remove the name due to naming/shaming policy, but it is all from one person.

Sorry man this is normal and no macro.

Wrecking>Soul Havest (for the buff)>Light attack>killers blade.

Soul Harvest > Light > Killers blade is near instant.

Im sorry just looking at the time stamp that is most definitely NOT normal and the denial and defense of such actions only perpetuate the problems within the game. All of those records are in less than 1.5 seconds and not only is that not even possible to physically hit every one of those skills in that time but they also have timing signatures in game where they take longer than that and their animations cant be cancelled. Unless 3rd party macros are used.

Sensesfail13 wrote: »

TheBull wrote: »

SOP must be new...

Armitas wrote: »

I don't know whether it's macro or manual, but the TTL is too short with the current allowable/capable game mechanics. The picture below shows my death log while falling off a resource tower from the initial wrecking blow that you see. You can check my chat log to see the time stamps for each skill. 4 attacks occurring in 2 seconds I died before I reached the ground.

I had to remove the name due to naming/shaming policy, but it is all from one person.

Sorry man this is normal and no macro.

Wrecking>Soul Havest (for the buff)>Light attack>killers blade.

Soul Harvest > Light > Killers blade is near instant.

Im sorry just looking at the time stamp that is most definitely NOT normal and the denial and defense of such actions only perpetuate the problems within the game. All of those records are in less than 1.5 seconds and not only is that not even possible to physically hit every one of those skills in that time but they also have timing signatures in game where they take longer than that and their animations cant be cancelled. Unless 3rd party macros are used.

I ambush>soul harvest>heavy>surprise in 1.4 seconds routinely. No macros. Try it OP. wind up a heavy attack then use a skill. Both will hit at the same time. Follow with another skill and all 3 will be under 1 second. The game has worked like this since day 1. If you are not "weaving attacks" you are losing 1/2 your dmg.

And this is what is the biggest problem with this. We have animations that SHOULD be canceled for maximum effect. What is the point of these animations, then?

I agree that is the essence of the problem, but it has become a feature of the game's combat and apparently will not or cannot be changed.

Varicite

BuggeX wrote: »

Like the Picture above. starting with wreking blow and finishing with Killers blade. in LESS than 2 sec.

thats the broken mechanic of the Animation cancelling, even with the gcd from 1 sec.

like i Wrote above the first "cancelled rota" Need 0,3-0,4 sec the second you can do at 1,3-1,4 with a delay from 0,2 the fight Ends right after 1,6sec.

+ the Picture from the wreking or yours just Show sec, we dont know the ms so you cant know if its exactly 1sec

Again, this is not possible via animation cancelling alone.

It's clear that something is going on here that is unaccounted for, and like many posters have said, it's very likely due to lag, desync, or some more exploitative behavior such as hacking (I'm generally reluctant to call it this w/out proof, though).

But you keep pointing your finger at the wrong thing, and that is what I have an issue w/.

The cooldown for attacks and abilities is ~1.3 seconds. You WILL NOT attack faster than this w/ animation cancelling, no matter how hard you try.

I will continue repeating this until you understand that this is simply not possible and finally realize that the culprit is something else entirely.

HeroOfNone

Folks, folks, if you're having issues with animation canceling then just use Dragonknight’s Molten Weapons, Sorcerer’s Bound Armaments and the Undaunted item sets.

Honestly though I think we are looking at an issue with some folks macroing, some lag, and some broken mechanics.


Back in 2.0.2 or so, I started noticing issues where folks were hitting me for around 3-4 wrecking blows in under 1 to 2 seconds. I assumed this was macroing at first, given the frequency and how the server seemed stable at the time. After seeing it was done by a few folks I have a bit more respectthat wouldn't necessarily do that, it became clear that their side was showing them the hit going off and I would seem to lag out while they would continue to hit, while I would see it all at once. Part of the issue seems to be with repositioning skills (knockbacks, chains, etc.) Gives the victim a slight delay when they see the effect.

Now, for the broken, certain combinations burst damage way too high due to this lag effect or simple mechanics. Doing wrecking blow, critical charge (while in the air), and execute (mix in light attacks and surprise attack) can kill a lot of folks before they hit the ground due to the duration of break free, the in air distance seems to register crit charge as to do it from a long distance, and the speed of execute and surprise attacks being almost instantaneous. Couple in a dodge roll and you can probably get enough for a 1 second kill on average targets.

For the macroing I believe it's still there but it's hard to prove. it could be something like small combo chains (heavy attack, execute, dodgeroll) to long sequence (wrecking blow for .7, block, wrecking blow for .7, block, execute, heavy...) but you're going to have it in both a non animation canceling game and a non canceling game.



So... what can we do to combat this? Little unless we want to change the game and unless we ourselves embrace animation canceling and actually IMPLEMENT IT rather than let us stumble along it and call it a feature. Lets discuss a few things that could give significant change

Blocking based on duration - this may need to be a armor or slotted ability to work in the current game set, but changing blocking to take reduced stamina drain based on hits, while at the same time draining stamina the longer it's held and takin ip staming when they engage in a block. It will stop the permanent blockers, but the one second kill will be lengthened out to several seconds as folks successfully block. Folks that time their attacks will be impacted less though, able to wait out the duration

If you animation cancel the damage is reduced - simply look at the time stamp on the attack compared to the others and reduce the damage from how long the duration should have taken. Cancel a heavy attack by half for a medium attack? Then it's half or 75% of the dsmage. Didgeroll just as you execute snd you may only do half the damage before the execute 300% kicks in. Players still get the effect of any ability but it's simply reduced in damage.

Cues to cancel - opposite of the above, random cues, like glowing hands, shining auras, etc. That give bonus/regular damage if you cancel during the proper window ar a faster attack rate

Bring back timed reflection abilities - things like reflective scale and blazing shirld, short duration abilities that can be used to reflect an animation cancelers damage if they dump it on you all at once. Increase the cost for multiple repetitive casts like sorcs bolt escape


Doubt anyone @ZOS is clamoring to get this done, bit if we're going to embrace animation canceling then we should implement more skill and better counters to it to prevent to macroing

Tors

To be honest, I dont understand why we are not seeing more posts about this than we are.



The damage shown here was sent within a single second. The only people there were me and him. I dismounted him, he turned around and pressed 1 button.

While this is a known exploit, little has been done to fix it. Its killling PvP

The way to do it is extremly easy using a macro enabled keyboard (or software that allows you to do the same from a normal keyboard)

This needs to get some kind of Zos response (either this post or one of the others) otherwise the only way to fix it is to tell the world how to do it too on Reddit

Armitas

There is a way that sorcs can bolt through the air in a straight line without falling. Whenever I ask how, they say it is due to lag, but that would not explain why this is done premeditated, such as when they intentionally set out to infiltrate a keep wall by bolting several times without falling from a high platform. If it is lag , then how can it be something they are expecting and anticipating with great expectation to be there. This leads me to believe there is something more involved than lag.

While there are any hard limitations, like cooldowns, then a macro would not overcome them. However they are being overcome, and reliably. This leads me to believe that there is a missing variable, such as what whatever led to the bowchinegun. If it is possible to break the hard limits like a GCD, then a macro would have very little in the way of limitations.

TL/DR, It's not just lag, because people are reliably using an unreliable event, it's not just a macro because there are hard limits that should otherwise prevent such a thing. Something else is happening.

ragespell

Easy fix: get rid of animation canceling.
Skills should take the designed time to fire.

Getting rid of animation canceling would also normalize dps among players with same stats, giving ZOS a better way to fine tuning pve contents.

Tors

Armitas wrote: »

it's not just a macro because there are hard limits that should otherwise prevent such a thing. Something else is happening.

@Armitas , its not the macro itself. you can break the animations using the keyboard normally, but this is not affective in combat. I can type 90-120 words a minute, still would find it hard to replicate these things manually while in the heat of the battle and while turning/aiming with one hand on the mouse.

But I can set my F1 key to do what I would have needed 15 key presses to do with only the single press.

The macro is an enabaler, but the fault is with the animaton clipping and the use of block for a milisecond to bypass a lot of time

Varicite

ragespell wrote: »

Easy fix: get rid of animation canceling.
Skills should take the designed time to fire.

Getting rid of animation canceling would also normalize dps among players with same stats, giving ZOS a better way to fine tuning pve contents.

They do take the designed time to fire. ~1.3 seconds. This is the hardcoded cooldown between each attack (though normal attacks and skills have separate cooldowns).

The only outlier to this is if you start w/ a heavy attack, clip w/ skill, and follow w/ light + skill. This can only be done after charging a heavy attack though, which takes almost 2 seconds by itself. The entire combo takes about 3 seconds to complete.

Tors wrote: »

The macro is an enabaler, but the fault is with the animaton clipping and the use of block for a milisecond to bypass a lot of time

No. Just no. Using a macro by itself is NOT going to allow somebody to do what the OP is talking about, firing off 4-5 abilities in under a second.

Why do people keep spouting this nonsense?

And strangely enough, not a SINGLE person who keeps spreading this misinformation can post a shred of evidence of doing this using animation cancelling or macros normally, because it is simply not possible to do using these methods.

Valymer

Regardless of whether you call it animation cancelling, macroing, server-client desync, or something else, these super bursts are making Cyrodiil even more of a joke than it already was.

But I recommend that everyone just get used to it because it will be like this for at least the next few months, and probably longer than that.

Xeven

@ZOS_GinaBruno please have a look at the time stamps in the chat box. You're looking at over 37k damage and 5 abilities in less than 2 seconds. This isn't supposed to be possible with the global cooldown, and it most certainly isn't possible without a macro. These people are exploiting a serious bug by breaking the TOS!

Please let us know that you guys are investigating this.

Varicite

Well, for this particular screenshot, WB takes about as long as the cooldown, so by the time WB hits you would be able to use Incap Strike.

These can both hit in about the same instant. Befouled Weapon is an enchant, not an ability, and doesn't incur any cooldown.

Light attack has an independent cooldown of skills, so this can be used pretty much right after the Incap Strike, and by the time the light attack has fired, you would be able to use another ability (in this case, an execute).

All of this can be done in about 2 seconds from the initial damage of the WB. I don't see any foul play in THIS particular screenshot at all.

If you look at my own screenshot that I made earlier just fighting a mudcrab, it's very clear that you can string together 2 abilities per second pretty comfortably just using normal game mechanics.


Now, I am NOT saying that extreme burst situations aren't occuring, but the screenshot that YOU quoted is not one of these cases.

I'd like to see some screenshots that ACTUALLY show 4-5 abilities occuring WITHIN a second, instead of the normal 2 abilities per second that is standard for most attack weaving situations.

Some posters have said they got hit by 4 surprise attacks in 1 second, but there is no actual proof of this posted (not calling them a liar, just that there's no evidence of this type of extreme posted in this thread yet).

In hectic combat, I'm curious how many players are able to tell the exact difference between 1 second and 3 seconds when they are being burst down.

helbjorn

From some of the examples given earlier, if you're in stealth and the other player doesn't know you're there, you pop out with an Ambush and *BAM* you're instantly dead from 4 seconds worth of damage, how can that be from lag?

In a confrontation where everyone sees each other coming, I can see where lag could create some of the scenarios described here, but from stealth?

Armitas

Tors wrote: »

To be honest, I dont understand why we are not seeing more posts about this than we are.



The damage shown here was sent within a single second. The only people there were me and him. I dismounted him, he turned around and pressed 1 button.

While this is a known exploit, little has been done to fix it. Its killling PvP

The way to do it is extremly easy using a macro enabled keyboard (or software that allows you to do the same from a normal keyboard)

This needs to get some kind of Zos response (either this post or one of the others) otherwise the only way to fix it is to tell the world how to do it too on Reddit

Flame reach and Flame touch are mutually exclusive skill morphs. Are you sure you were alone? ...Could the dot from flame reach be called fire touch?

Varicite

You can't really tell anything from a deathcap screenshot. : /

Darklord_Tiberius

The best way to counter macro users is to run with a large group and kill them. Phoenix Rising can kill any guild, any server; we have videos of us killing every top player on both factions time and time again. Their cheating ways do not work when you ride into their horde and break them. Doing solo stuff, yea macros rule the day because they take 4-5 seconds of normal attacks and jam them into 1-2 seconds. Unless you are a templar with BS and BoL, I do not see how anyone can survive the macro hits. Whats funny is when people try and hit me with their baddie macros and fail; then I turn around and destroy them. Most macro users are horrid PvPers, its the reason they have to macro.

BuggeX

Darklord_Tiberius wrote: »

The best way to counter macro users is to run with a large group and kill them. Phoenix Rising can kill any guild, any server; we have videos of us killing every top player on both factions time and time again. Their cheating ways do not work when you ride into their horde and break them. Doing solo stuff, yea macros rule the day because they take 4-5 seconds of normal attacks and jam them into 1-2 seconds. Unless you are a templar with BS and BoL, I do not see how anyone can survive the macro hits. Whats funny is when people try and hit me with their baddie macros and fail; then I turn around and destroy them. Most macro users are horrid PvPers, its the reason they have to macro.

right, organisated zerg helps to kill the macro users.
But sometimes there are Situation where you have to win a fight 1v1

technohic

Darklord_Tiberius wrote: »

The best way to counter macro users is to run with a large group and kill them. Phoenix Rising can kill any guild, any server; we have videos of us killing every top player on both factions time and time again. Their cheating ways do not work when you ride into their horde and break them. Doing solo stuff, yea macros rule the day because they take 4-5 seconds of normal attacks and jam them into 1-2 seconds. Unless you are a templar with BS and BoL, I do not see how anyone can survive the macro hits. Whats funny is when people try and hit me with their baddie macros and fail; then I turn around and destroy them. Most macro users are horrid PvPers, its the reason they have to macro.

LOL You'd have to have awfully high health to have BS last very long against burst like that if it really is happening instantly. Even 30k health your shield would drop quicker than a pair of panties on prom night and you likely will get blasted by an unmitigated leftover.

Snit

The frequent latency issues in Cyrodiil make it impossible to tell whether someone is cheating or whether the server just happened to hiccup again.

Emma_Overload

Tors wrote: »

To be honest, I dont understand why we are not seeing more posts about this than we are.



The damage shown here was sent within a single second. The only people there were me and him. I dismounted him, he turned around and pressed 1 button.

While this is a known exploit, little has been done to fix it. Its killling PvP

The way to do it is extremly easy using a macro enabled keyboard (or software that allows you to do the same from a normal keyboard)

This needs to get some kind of Zos response (either this post or one of the others) otherwise the only way to fix it is to tell the world how to do it too on Reddit

Two of those are DOT, so they don't count. That leaves you with a Heavy Attack, a Weapon Skill and then another Heavy Attack... not exactly what I'd call a super-elite OP combo. The Heavy Attacks were truncated (aka Medium Attacks) for them to fit into a short time frame as you describe. The interesting thing about Heavy Attacks is that you don't have to wait until the prior Ability or Weapon animation is finished before you press the Attack button down, but you DO have to wait a little while before you lift it up in order for the Heavy Attack to register. Any way you cut it, you might be able to get 3 attacks off in 1.4 seconds or so, but that's about as good as it gets. Using a macro on the client side will not do ANYTHING to make this go faster, the cooldowns are hard-coded on the server.

If you're going to complain about something, how about the fact that the guy got 16687 from a Heavy Attack! What's up with that.. is that a Dragonknight thing?

technohic

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

If you're going to complain about something, how about the fact that the guy got 16687 from a Heavy Attack! What's up with that.. is that a Dragonknight thing?

Heh. Seen much bigger posted here before. There's a lot of synergy a DK can do to fire damage.

Bottom line is this game has 99 problems but animation cancelling probably aint one.

Sacadon

Snit wrote: »

The frequent latency issues in Cyrodiil make it impossible to tell whether someone is cheating or whether the server just happened to hiccup again.

^^ this plus the TTK issue has us imagining things. Take off the tinfoil hats already.

kevlarto_ESO

I sure wish some one official would chime in on this thread and let us know some facts...

Wreuntzylla

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

Tors wrote: »

To be honest, I dont understand why we are not seeing more posts about this than we are.



The damage shown here was sent within a single second. The only people there were me and him. I dismounted him, he turned around and pressed 1 button.

While this is a known exploit, little has been done to fix it. Its killling PvP

The way to do it is extremly easy using a macro enabled keyboard (or software that allows you to do the same from a normal keyboard)

This needs to get some kind of Zos response (either this post or one of the others) otherwise the only way to fix it is to tell the world how to do it too on Reddit

Two of those are DOT, so they don't count. That leaves you with a Heavy Attack, a Weapon Skill and then another Heavy Attack... not exactly what I'd call a super-elite OP combo. The Heavy Attacks were truncated (aka Medium Attacks) for them to fit into a short time frame as you describe. The interesting thing about Heavy Attacks is that you don't have to wait until the prior Ability or Weapon animation is finished before you press the Attack button down, but you DO have to wait a little while before you lift it up in order for the Heavy Attack to register. Any way you cut it, you might be able to get 3 attacks off in 1.4 seconds or so, but that's about as good as it gets. Using a macro on the client side will not do ANYTHING to make this go faster, the cooldowns are hard-coded on the server.

If you're going to complain about something, how about the fact that the guy got 16687 from a Heavy Attack! What's up with that.. is that a Dragonknight thing?

Looks like the heavy attack DK build posted over on Tamriel Foundry.

Varicite

kevlarto_ESO wrote: »

I sure wish some one official would chime in on this thread and let us know some facts...

I'm not official, but I've definitely posted the facts about animation cancelling all over this thread.

People just don't want to have their silly little bubble burst that it really isn't some magical technique that will explode stars, galaxies, and the universe itself when done correctly.

NukeAllTheThings

Interesting, 5 pages in a discussion about rampant macro use and not one video. I guess I will check back later and hope to see one. I really want everyone to be macro'ing so I can have an excuse every time I die in the game

LucyferLightbringer

Can you really blame us for looking at animation cancelling first when something like this pops up? It's a shady bug that started up as exploit that was supposed to be fixed and was later renamed to a "unintended feature" due to devs being unable to do their job properly. It's something that was never supposed to be here, so naturally its a first thing to look at at when something is wrong with attacks. It's funny how there is still no tutorial teaching new player how to use this extreme important game exploit feature. Many people still don't know it exists and yet its needed for completing endgame content.

Varicite

LucyferLightbringer wrote: »

Can you really blame us for looking at animation cancelling first when something like this pops up? It's a shady bug that started up as exploit that was supposed to be fixed and was later renamed to a "unintended feature" due to devs being unable to do their job properly. It's something that was never supposed to be here, so naturally its a first thing to look at at when something is wrong with attacks. It's funny how there is still no tutorial teching new player how to use this extreme important game exploit feature. Many people still don't know it exists and yet its needed for completing endgame content.

Almost everything that you just said is wrong. <.<

Pretty much the only correct thing in that block of text was "many people still don't know it exists".

So no, I can't blame people for not having any clue about it when people like you are constantly posting misinformation about it all over the forums.

But hey, that's why I'm here to do what I do. ; )

Shunravi

Varicite wrote: »

LucyferLightbringer wrote: »

Can you really blame us for looking at animation cancelling first when something like this pops up? It's a shady bug that started up as exploit that was supposed to be fixed and was later renamed to a "unintended feature" due to devs being unable to do their job properly. It's something that was never supposed to be here, so naturally its a first thing to look at at when something is wrong with attacks. It's funny how there is still no tutorial teching new player how to use this extreme important game exploit feature. Many people still don't know it exists and yet its needed for completing endgame content.

Almost everything that you just said is wrong. <.<

Pretty much the only correct thing in that block of text was "many people still don't know it exists".

So no, I can't blame people for not having any clue about it when people like you are constantly posting misinformation about it all over the forums.

But hey, that's why I'm here to do what I do. ; )

And please keep doing it

Lykurgis

There's a video guide on animation canceling. It's ruled legal by ZOS because they can't really fix it, lazy, but ya...it's all good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTb2YpuRsP4

About macros, they told people at the guild summit (and I believe here on the forums as well as ESO live) that programs like Razors Synapse, Logitech G15 keyboards ect were ok to use. Obviously botting is not so if a macro leads to that, well then thats another matter.
I have seen people trading Macros in zone/guild chat since the game launch and have yet to hear of a single person banned for it.
Using a "weave" macro is a pretty common practice and i seriously doubt that many (if any) high leader board guilds/groups abstain from using them in some form or fashion.

Varicite

Lykurgis wrote: »

There's a video guide on animation canceling. It's ruled legal by ZOS because they can't really fix it, lazy, but ya...it's all good.

It's not that they can't fix it, it's that there's nothing to "fix" about it. The alternatives are not better than what we have, in their opinion.

Again, it is the intended interaction of skill usage and it has nothing to do w/ ZOS not being able to fix it, they don't feel the need to fix it because of a couple different factors.

1) Every skill / attack is capped by a GCD, meaning that there is already a hard-coded limit in the game to how fast a player will be able to attack. Animation cancelling does not allow you to bypass this GCD.

2) The alternatives are worse than what they have currently for their idea of fluid combat.

3) They already did "fix it" by adjusting most animations accordingly to accomodate animation cancelling better.

It seems like when people say "they don't know how to fix it", what they really mean is "ZOS didn't get rid of it entirely like I wanted them to, so clearly they must be incompetent".

That's not really the case, they just don't agree w/ those who feel that it's a problem. Why? Mostly for the reasons I just listed.