What are the rules for being in combat (from the horses (ZOS) mouth, please)

Meurto · July 2022

So we all know about the miserable situation where you are running around constantly in combat from a fight 30 minutes ago at a keep half way across the map... but what exactly are the rules for determining if you are actually in combat? I get the feeling someone copied and pasted the logic from pve to pvp and it the system fell flat on it's face. In pve it is quite simple - you either kill the mob or it reaches the tether and retreats back to it's original location.

From my hundreds of hours in cyro it seems as if you don't kill your target you are going to be stuck in combat. If anyone has seen an official post on this I would love to see it as it is absolutely maddening in the current state. I have the following scenarios which are probably familiar to most everyone and I would love to hear from ZOS on this.

I attack someone and they enter a keep.

A nightblade attacks me and they cloak away.

I attack someone and they retreat.

I would also be curious if the new hardware for NA (just a peasant on EU) resolved this issue. Honestly, if anyone has any real info on this I would love to understand how this should work. Hopefully the plan vs execution or horribly misaligned.

DrSlaughtr · July 2022

The only thing that really gets to me is when I have Relentless Focus and Frenzied Momentum stacked up and I get dropped from combat even though I'm in middle of a massive battle. I'd rather run to every keep than lose those buffs and procs even though I'm actively engaged in combat.

malistorr · July 2022

Not sure if my experience is directly related or not but just in case...
On Xbox NA Blackreach for the past few days if not more it seems like I'm constantly stuck in combat for no reason. For example I'll leave a keep fight in the middle of 1 for whatever reason and run what seems like thousands of yards/meters from the keep and still cannot mount. Or I'll run past some animals away from a keep or resource and the same thing happens. It very well may be that if the enemy does not die (and even if you're the equivalent of hundreds of yards away) you're stuck in combat. It kind of seams like that is what's happening. (Stuck in combat IMO should be based only on your proximity to an enemy player or hostile NPC. Once you're x number of yards away you should be automatically removed from the in-combat state so you can mount and ride.) It's just horribly frustrating and is ruining the PVP playing experience for me. This has been happening for years now and the issue seems to be sporadic. Sometimes I'll have the issue constantly and have trouble riding to keep attacks or resources because I have to literally run on foot. I'll reset UI, I'll log out of the game and back in. I'll reboot my whole Xbox. Very little seems to help. The problem keeps popping up over and over again. Sometimes it will literally spoil play for me for the whole weekend as I'll struggle just to get to a keep before it's taken and I miss out of tens-of-thousands of AP. Sometimes it will be barely noticeable for a week or 2 but it always, always comes back. For years now. Please ZOS for the love of God fix these bugs that prevent people from enjoying or even playing the game. This bug is probably the single biggest thing preventing me from enjoying PVP other than overall horrible performance of PVP on Xbox with slow-motion skills, flashing screens, and dropping lots of frames. (On Xbox Series X with half-gig wired fiber from California so pretty sure the issue isn't on my side)

Thecompton73 · July 2022

ninjagank wrote: »

The only thing that really gets to me is when I have Relentless Focus and Frenzied Momentum stacked up and I get dropped from combat even though I'm in middle of a massive battle. I'd rather run to every keep than lose those buffs and procs even though I'm actively engaged in combat.

Yeah, I don't get how those skills lose the proc like that so quickly but the actual "in combat" designation gets stuck for so long after I've disengaged.
I don't know if anyone else remembers but they actually fixed the "in combat" bug a few years back but broke it again in the very next update and it's been that way since.

Theignson · July 2022

The combat bug is the WORST bug in PvP.

It has wasted , over the years, HOURS of my time

ZOS has NEVER, to my knowledge acknowledged it or confirmed it is intentional

It is MUCH WORSE lately

My theory is it is a bug deep in their code that they have no idea how to fix. The second theory is that it is intentional and they simply have no clue how arbitrary and annoying, and time wasting it is.

the1andonlyskwex · July 2022

There really should be a dev in the forums whose job is to definitively answer these types of mechanical questions (see also threads about partially emptied chest respawns), but there isn't. The net result is a lot of toxic argument about how the game actually works without any real conclusions or understanding.

Cuddlypuff · July 2022

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

There really should be a dev in the forums whose job is to definitively answer these types of mechanical questions (see also threads about partially emptied chest respawns), but there isn't. The net result is a lot of toxic argument about how the game actually works without any real conclusions or understanding.

Bold of you to assume that developers even know how the stuck in combat bug works after 8 years.

the1andonlyskwex · July 2022

Cuddlypuff wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

There really should be a dev in the forums whose job is to definitively answer these types of mechanical questions (see also threads about partially emptied chest respawns), but there isn't. The net result is a lot of toxic argument about how the game actually works without any real conclusions or understanding.

Bold of you to assume that developers even know how the stuck in combat bug works after 8 years.

Well, they should at least know how it's supposed to work, even if that's not exactly how it actually works in all cases. Additionally, it would probably help in debugging if players also knew how it was supposed to work, because then we could provide meaningful feedback about the specific conditions that cause it to not work as intended. As-is, we're all just guessing about what's supposed to happen when.

DigiAngel · July 2022

People with Death Dealers Fete: What's all this then?

Troodon80 · July 2022

It's not even just Cyrodiil, either. There are places in PvE overland (or underland, I suppose) like Blackreach (the area, not the campaign) where you just inexplicably end up in combat for no reason. Then you're out of combat, and back in combat again, and out of combat, and in combat. In the brief time where you're not in combat, you try to mount up but mid-animation the game says nah, you're in combat again.

Also in dungeons, I cannot count the number of times people have aggroed the crocodile in Wayrest Sewers and it goes into the grated nook only to get stuck in the wall and stay in aggro for the rest of the dungeon, preventing you from using doors later.

Or the Spiderkith dual wield guy in Cradle of Shadows near the last boss (before you go down the stairs to the pack with the last ogrim) who gets stuck in the ceiling 9 runs out of 10 and won't lose aggro.

Or Ruins of Mazzatun with the calendar room where someone might have aggroed a mudcrab much earlier in the dungeon and might not have realised before going through the one-way door on the way to Xal-Nur (thankfully there's a timer on the Elders getting dunked, so it's not as bad). There's dozens of examples of this.

It affects the whole game to different degrees. Cyrodiil being the overall worst for it, given the vast scope of it and mounting or teleporting basically being a requirement and neither can be done while in combat, and you're in combat for seemingly no reason (unlike dungeons where you aggroed something but it's, for example, stuck in a wall).

If you put rules on changing gear and mounting while in combat, then fix the being-in-combat bugs. This never used to be an issue way back around the time of Morrowind and it was a change I don't think anyone asked for. Happened around 2018, if I recall?

maxjapank · July 2022

Being “stuck in combat” was fixed for exactly one patch a couple of years ago. After six seconds, you were out of combat. But the it returned when they changed how defensive ticks worked, when you could receive credit and not have to be in the vicinity of the keep when the tick happened. Being stuck in combat was acknowledged. I think by Gina. But it was stated that they didn’t want to apply a bandaid fix and needed time to come up with a solution. But it’s been two years now…

I have long suspected that it is related to players using addons to change gear while in battle. Being stuck in combat prevents you from swapping gear. But that is just my theory.