Animation Canceling - My point of view and reflection on the subject

Xerton

Inig0 wrote: »

I don't understand. You say that the game has officially endorsed it and accept it as a game mechanic yet you still are proposing them changing it. You say you understand why they said what they have said and why they won't change it yet you still want them to change it. You call it exploiting yet you explain why it's necessary for game mechanics. You suggest a fix that really isn't a fix but a complete overhaul to combat and for what? So you can see the animations? If that was the case a lot of the content would need to be adjusted for this change to the rate that we can push out skills. Healing for instance would be heavily affected. The game is designed for fast paced combat. The pve content is designed for fast paced responses. If you cant keep up then you are not a skillful player and should play some other game with global cool-downs.

ALSO

If you would rather Wrobel take the time to adhere to your little QQ about ACing instead of balancing the classes then you have no idea about the imbalances of the game at all. Animation canceling is far from what is imbalanced in this game. Are you that blind, casual, and/ or naive to really think this is where ZOS should spend their resources?

One of the best comments in this thread. Thanks for that @Inig0

Ermiq

Royaji wrote: »

cjthibs wrote: »

Sigtric wrote: »

cjthibs wrote: »

Just one more random thought.

It seems we have two camps here.
Those who want combat to be based on twitch-skill. (Pro-Animation Canceling.)

-AND-

Those who want combat to be more strategic. (Anti-Animation Canceling.)

I fall into the strategic camp.
We have all of these cool abilities, with different buffs/debuffs, conditions to apply, etc., but what the PvP in this game is really about is straight-up damage/heal output. And in my opinion, this is due to animation cancelling. If you can't tell what your opponent is doing, how can you counter it? There is no point, so just outheal and outdamage. That's a big part of why we have cookie-cutter builds and FoTM builds.

I will concede that animation cancelling does take skill. Happily. But is it really the kind of skill we want to encourage, or the kind of skill that ZoS should be encouraging?

What would you do different to counter
1 light attack anim canceled by one ability attack
versus
1 light attack fully animated and then one ability attack?

The question isn't what would I do...the question is would I even know which ability was used?

The more relevant scenario is when an ability's animation is canceled and no relevant animation is even shown. There is no real counter, because you have no idea which ability was even used.

But does it really matter which exact ability was used? If I have a stun on me - I will CC break, if I am rooted - I will roll dodge, If my health is low - I will heal and cast some mitigation skills. Isn't that the reactive and strategic gameplay you were talking about? Yes, on a slightly larger scale. It's not so much about reacting to specific abilities, but about reacting to the whole offense and countering after you mitigated the damage.

Is this an action gameplay ACers are talking about? Lol.
So, in any other MMORPG (such as WoW, Lineage, etc.) we're reacting to that specific abilities, we're healing when our health is low, we're using anti-control abilities when stunned... In that games we're looking at buff/debuff icons and reacting. So, would I say any other MMORPG is an action game like ESO?
Don't you really understand what an action gameplay is?

Alcast

When Zenimax made changes to Animations a few things happened:

1. People still QQ that animation canceling is here (ONLY REASON why it was changed)
2. People get stuck ALL THE TIME in animations
3. So called "MACROSLICES" started happening
4. Animations feel clunky
5. Light/Heavy Attack weaving feels weird and delayed.
6. Heavy attack Wblow is even worse then before now

@Wrobel

So I would LOVE to see that ZOS changes it back to how it was so all those problems disappear.

Saturn

Johngo0036 wrote: »

I sit with latency of around 250,

It is very difficult to animation cancel with this kind of latency,
Even @Alcast mentioned it in one of his youtube videos when connecting to the PTS.

I therefore feel that guys with lower ping have a massive advantage when it comes to animation cancelling,
especially in PVP...

I ran into @Alcast once in pvp and he wrecked me in less than a second... lol...
Animation cancelling is a beast when done correctly but with higher latency it becomes near impossible.

I play at a constant 200-250 ping as well and am able to animation cancel, but it requires different timing, and while it is true that it's not as easy as with low ping, it is still quite possible. I will say though, ESO is one of the more forgiving MMOs I've played, since connecting to an NA server from Europe is usually 400 ping territory. Now if only the servers wouldn't blow up every weekend I might actually appreciate the pingrate more ;p

Nerouyn

Hate animation cancelling and won't touch any even remotely content because of it. So Cyrodiil, raids, etc. effectively don't exist in this game for me.

I'll enjoy the story and go play something else.

LtCrunch

Alcast wrote: »

When Zenimax made changes to Animations a few things happened:

1. People still QQ that animation canceling is here (ONLY REASON why it was changed)
2. People get stuck ALL THE TIME in animations
3. So called "MACROSLICES" started happening
4. Animations feel clunky
5. Light/Heavy Attack weaving feels weird and delayed.
6. Heavy attack Wblow is even worse then before now

@Wrobel

So I would LOVE to see that ZOS changes it back to how it was so all those problems disappear.

Having come back to ESO after a year hiatus....I quickly noticed the changes to AC. It absolutely feels way clunkier than it did before. I already stated my overall opinion on the last page, but I just wanted to chime in and say that even after a year away I could tell they had done SOMETHING to attempt to address it and just made it feel worse rather than fixing it. Which isn't an unusual happening. Especially not for us ESO veterans xD

Ermiq

PandaIsAPotato wrote: »

Learn it or don't, but quit making threads about it.

Never. If you want to play the game with crude battle system, ok, do it. But there are people who want this game to be designed with strong basic mechanics, but not these legalized exploiting it has at the moment.

Zyrudin

Royaji wrote: »

Yes, you can cancel the animation. But you can't make a channel fire all the damage at once or use a different skill at the same time as a channel.

A competent AC'er can Channel > Bar Swap > Light Attack > Ability and it will all register.

DeusExMachina

Just a friendly note, to potentially save someone here a few bucks in a moment of weakness, if you can't handle AC in ESO, literally never try Black Desert.

Zyrudin

Egonieser wrote: »

Ever seen the Samurai swordplay? Real life AC in all it's beauty.

Real life sword-fighting will not register damage if the movement is cancelled.

Ermiq

Xerton wrote: »

Inig0 wrote: »

I don't understand. You say that the game has officially endorsed it and accept it as a game mechanic yet you still are proposing them changing it. You say you understand why they said what they have said and why they won't change it yet you still want them to change it. You call it exploiting yet you explain why it's necessary for game mechanics. You suggest a fix that really isn't a fix but a complete overhaul to combat and for what? So you can see the animations? If that was the case a lot of the content would need to be adjusted for this change to the rate that we can push out skills. Healing for instance would be heavily affected. The game is designed for fast paced combat. The pve content is designed for fast paced responses. If you cant keep up then you are not a skillful player and should play some other game with global cool-downs.

ALSO

If you would rather Wrobel take the time to adhere to your little QQ about ACing instead of balancing the classes then you have no idea about the imbalances of the game at all. Animation canceling is far from what is imbalanced in this game. Are you that blind, casual, and/ or naive to really think this is where ZOS should spend their resources?

One of the best comments in this thread. Thanks for that @Inig0

That comment is not hold water and you say it's one of the best? Lol.

Xerton

Eremith wrote: »

Xerton wrote: »

Inig0 wrote: »

I don't understand. You say that the game has officially endorsed it and accept it as a game mechanic yet you still are proposing them changing it. You say you understand why they said what they have said and why they won't change it yet you still want them to change it. You call it exploiting yet you explain why it's necessary for game mechanics. You suggest a fix that really isn't a fix but a complete overhaul to combat and for what? So you can see the animations? If that was the case a lot of the content would need to be adjusted for this change to the rate that we can push out skills. Healing for instance would be heavily affected. The game is designed for fast paced combat. The pve content is designed for fast paced responses. If you cant keep up then you are not a skillful player and should play some other game with global cool-downs.

ALSO

If you would rather Wrobel take the time to adhere to your little QQ about ACing instead of balancing the classes then you have no idea about the imbalances of the game at all. Animation canceling is far from what is imbalanced in this game. Are you that blind, casual, and/ or naive to really think this is where ZOS should spend their resources?

One of the best comments in this thread. Thanks for that @Inig0

That comment is not hold water and you say it's one of the best? Lol.

Come again?

Anhedonie

Leave AC be.
After they tried to fix it in TG patch, people started to suffer from that super long and crappy animation (like when you hold firestaf like rocket launcher). That never fixed AC, but should your ping drop a bit, you'll notice that.

SwimsWithMemes

I don't mind animation cancelling, but I absolutely hate how it punishes players for having lag. All of us in SEA region play on like, minmum 250 ping, I play on average 340 ping. Its hard enough to get the game to cast your skill before bar swapping, instead of saying "oops, you did the animation but because you wanted to bar swap you just wasted 1.5 seconds! If the ping spikes at all then ESO has no way of telling you until you see your abilities doing 0 damage.

Please give the game a West Coast USA server cluster so those of us far away can actually play with the same game mechanics!

tunepunk

Animation cancelling is a good thing BUT ......The attack you cancelled SHOULD be... cancelled.... in my opinion, and not deal any damage... Cancelling a light attack should cancel it in favor of the skill you're using, meaning the light attack wouldn't do any damage if you changed your mind mid swing. You should be able to cancel an attack in favor of block, dodge, or any other means of defence, but cancelling should mean canceling any damage from the cancelled attack also.

Alcast

Saturn wrote: »

Johngo0036 wrote: »

I sit with latency of around 250,

It is very difficult to animation cancel with this kind of latency,
Even @Alcast mentioned it in one of his youtube videos when connecting to the PTS.

I therefore feel that guys with lower ping have a massive advantage when it comes to animation cancelling,
especially in PVP...

I ran into @Alcast once in pvp and he wrecked me in less than a second... lol...
Animation cancelling is a beast when done correctly but with higher latency it becomes near impossible.

I play at a constant 200-250 ping as well and am able to animation cancel, but it requires different timing, and while it is true that it's not as easy as with low ping, it is still quite possible. I will say though, ESO is one of the more forgiving MMOs I've played, since connecting to an NA server from Europe is usually 400 ping territory. Now if only the servers wouldn't blow up every weekend I might actually appreciate the pingrate more ;p

Of course it is still possible. But it is about 0.3s slower then it used to be due to the changes introduced to animation canceling like 3 or 4? patches ago.

and 0.3s is A LOT of time

Those changes, like I listed before, introduced a ton of new bugs/clunky animations

EpicSpaceMoose

Animation cancelling is not hard to do and has been stated before by ZOS that it is not an exploit/cheating. In HM Rakkhat my ping goes to about 300 since I connect to the NA server from Europe and I can AC just fine. Please get good and stop whining.

magnusthorek

In short, AC should exist as its core indicates: to cancel performed animations in order to do a different one needed.

But in its current state it exists to allow more skills to play in less time, increasing (mainly) the overall DPS.

But I think something more should be done, like discard only part of the, for example, damage a skill causes depending on when it was canceled.

E.g.: If you cancel a Puncturing Sweeps near the end of its animation, let's say at fourth spear, something like 75% of its damage could be allowed as the first three already hit the target.

Arreyanne

The biggest complaint I have with Animation cancelling is that it still provides full damage, if the skill is cancelled it the player should not receive full damage from the skill

b101uk

i would wager AC being available increases the chases of macros being used.

AnviOfVai

Brandalf wrote: »

If ZOS doesn't think it's worth the resources it would require to fix properly and are going to leave in it then they absolutely need to start treating it like any other combat mechanics. They need to advertise it as a combat mechanic; add the relevant information to tooltips, implement tutorials to detail the basic and advanced concepts behind AC. Right now it's just sloppy and frankly ZOS should be embarrassed that a near staple element of endgame combat is completely omitted and players are left to figure it out for themselves or find the relevant information through forums, videos and guides.

Personally I think they need to go through and revamp every animation in one way or the other so that damage applied syncs with when a blade makes contact or a spell leaves your hand/the end of your staff. Then allow players to cancel the recovery or "pointless" frames of an animation. If it's cancelled before that point of the animation it should completely prevent any damage from firing. This is how you make animation cancelling work competently as a developer. I don't expect ZOS to put resources into doing it right, but the very least they can do is start teaching players that it's part of the core combat mechanics. Because it absolutely is at this point.

YOU SIR

dramsb14_ESO

Arreyanne wrote: »

The biggest complaint I have with Animation cancelling is that it still provides full damage, if the skill is cancelled it the player should not receive full damage from the skill

Exactly. Just like if you "cancel" channeled attacks such as heavy staff attacks, you only get the partial effect of the spell (what we call a light attack). If you cancel non-channeled attacks you shouldn't get any effect.

b101uk

If only you could get 30 days subscription to ESO by Payment Cancelling, like you can get the full effect of some spells/attacks even though you have cancelled them before they have been fully processed.

WalkingLegacy

EpicSpaceMoose wrote: »

Animation cancelling is not hard to do and has been stated before by ZOS that it is not an exploit/cheating. In HM Rakkhat my ping goes to about 300 since I connect to the NA server from Europe and I can AC just fine. Please get good and stop whining.

ZOS doesn't know how to fix it which is apparent by how long the game has been out and the patch change a little while ago.

So just issue a statement that it's been intended amirite. And if they ever did get around to fixing it how many of you hardcore PvP players be here whining? There goes your free kills right?

I know how to AC and still know it is wrong.

Nolphi

Its unfair to those with higher pings. Thats the only issue I have with it. At least I blame my high ping, not my finger nimbleness or overall lack of skill

dramsb14_ESO

b101uk wrote: »

If only you could get 30 days subscription to ESO by Payment Cancelling, like you can get the full effect of some spells/attacks even though you have cancelled them before they have been fully processed.

LMAO +1

AnviOfVai

dramsb14_ESO wrote: »

b101uk wrote: »

If only you could get 30 days subscription to ESO by Payment Cancelling, like you can get the full effect of some spells/attacks even though you have cancelled them before they have been fully processed.

LMAO +1

+2

ORO8ORO

Arreyanne wrote: »

The biggest complaint I have with Animation cancelling is that it still provides full damage, if the skill is cancelled it the player should not receive full damage from the skill

Yeah. If the animation (attack) is cancelled, it shouldn't do any damage. The damage should be done in the end of the skill/attack animation. We still should be able to cancel the animations (without the damage) only to dodge or block attacks.

Fudly_budly

Betahkiin wrote: »

Beandre wrote: »

...

At the moment it is only possible to learn to use this benefit or accept the disadvantage of not doing so.

What if this is clear is that it is not necessary to generate conflict between the community through aggressions or disqualifications.

I so hate being killed in 1.8 seconds and the death recap showing ALL the crap I got hit with. BUT, last night I just said "screw it! I am going to play this game as it is not how I want it." I have officially endorsed AC as a developer accepted exploit... ahem... "unplanned but 'cool' game mechanic."

ORO8ORO

Fudly_budly wrote: »

killed in 1.8 seconds

This. We can't even hit back most part of times. Who attacks first win.
The combat system was not suposed to be this way. There's no combat at all!