PTS Update 48 – Feedback Thread for Combat Animation Memory Reduction

MashmalloMan · October 2

If you want to improve the flow of combat like you stated, these animation changes ain't it. Focus on other area's that actually effect us on the day to day. There was a time where you couldn't Block + Weapon Swap without dropping it briefly, that's an example of the type of changes we're looking for.

Allow synergy use during cast/channel times.
- The potion change this patch was a great idea, this always felt clunky and had no purpose of ever being there. Synergies are in the same boat.
Lower all 1.0s cast/channel times to 0.8s.
- Eg. Dark Conversion.
- Better fits the 1s GCD and has become widely accepted amongst the playerbase as feeling 'just right". You're obviously aware of this because it's present on most previous 1s cast time spammables, but also you just changed Templar's Jesus Beam this year to 3.8s. Same princible.
Remove the slow effect and intertuptablilty of ranged heavy attack and cast/channel time abilities:
- Ranged attacks already have 0.3s minimum travel time in melee range which goes up to 1~1.7s at 28m, these 2 factors cover the balance of range vs melee counterplay. Interuptting/bashing is not exclusive to melee and has been added to ranged attacks defeating the original intended purpose. Melee can also utilize gap closers and movement speed bonuses, in conjunction with the new 7m range, and typically 10% stronger tooltips.
- The added penalties to make ranged attacks slower, weaker, and easier to counter is hardly justified especially when considering most playstyles aren't strictly range or melee, but often a mixture of the two. Eg. You have an Ability Altering Weapon for Snipe that rewards you for getting closer to your target, but you move like a snail and can be interupted. Who would ever use this?
Remove all short duration (0.2s~0.5s) cast/channel times.
- Eg. Dawnbreaker, Poop Fist, Death Stroke, Abyssal Impact.
- With how short these are, it serves as a nuisance rather than counterplay because the average human reaction time is 0.25s, this is already close to these short cast times, but even worse when you consider ping, response time of monitors/keyboards/controllers, frame rate, refresh rate, and physically pressing the key you need to. Aka, it's entirely random if these attacks succeed or not, true counterplay comes from predicting your oponents next move which has nothing to do with cast times.
- If you absolutely must have damage delayed, make the cast instant with delayed hit registration. This happens with the 0.3s minimum travel time on instant ranged projectile attacks, skills like Volley, Contingency, Leashing Burst, and Bound Armaments. Ranged attacks have different travel speeds. There is so many better ways to introduce counterplay without it feeling clunky due to short, slow, interruptable, cast times.

DarkStrifeYT · October 2

So I tried this and I absolutely dislike the new animations as it heavily throws me off and does not look good at all. Please do not add this into the live game. If this goes into live a lot of players will be upset. This has made animation canceling impossible to upkeep 100%. Why did you even think this was the way to go? This isn't even causing issues on memory.

MashmalloMan · October 7

Week 4 (usually the last patch that makes it to live):

Animations are still janky, stuttering, and noticably missing key frames for a smooth visual experience. 2H is still the worst, but all weapons have the weapon trail from swinging appear/dissapear randomly, making it look even worse.
Weaving still feels off with a noticable loss to DPS due to missing light attacks and/or skill casts not registering properly.
Some Polymorphs still give access to the old animations, gives an immediate way to compare the old vs the new animation with the quick slot wheel. Makes it even more apparent how bad these are in direct comparison.
I setup my character for 30 minutes, then left it afk for 10 minutes, no issues, the moment I started parsing I crashed within 5 minutes. Still not using a PS controller, no double input, XBox controller.

It's very concerning that you seem to be going live with these changes, you're going to have an exodus more disastrous than update 35 on your hands.

Morvan · October 9

Baffled that they didn't remove this on W4, really hope it doesn't get to live on the state it is.

colossalvoids · October 9

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Week 4 (usually the last patch that makes it to live):
Animations are still janky, stuttering, and noticably missing key frames for a smooth visual experience. 2H is still the worst, but all weapons have the weapon trail from swinging appear/dissapear randomly, making it look even worse.

Weaving still feels off with a noticable loss to DPS due to missing light attacks and/or skill casts not registering properly.

Some Polymorphs still give access to the old animations, gives an immediate way to compare the old vs the new animation with the quick slot wheel. Makes it even more apparent how bad these are in direct comparison.

I setup my character for 30 minutes, then left it afk for 10 minutes, no issues, the moment I started parsing I crashed within 5 minutes. Still not using a PS controller, no double input, XBox controller.

It's very concerning that you seem to be going live with these changes, you're going to have an exodus more disastrous than update 35 on your hands.

Just tagging @ZOS_Kevin so it hopefully won't go unnoticed and misrepresented as it was with Gina weeks back. It's a preventable disaster still and "we're looking into it" or "weren't aware of this new issue" after the release won't cut it this time.

Rkindaleft · October 14

At least you fixed the controller crashes (allegedly) but this is the last PTS update and y'all still didn't do anything about the animations (unless it wasn't listed in the patch notes, at this point I can't be bothered downloading the new patch to test it out).

This forum and social media are going to be flooded with posts about how bad this looks and how clunky it feels to play hours after this update goes live. It's unfortunate there was almost nothing worth testing this PTS cycle because otherwise this would have made a lot more noise.

mandricus · October 19

Another questionable "improvement" that nobody asked for, that looks in an unfinished state, and that will likely cause a lot of frustration on the players base.

We can easily predict that lot of people will complain about this, and someone will probably quit the game alltogheter. And the sad this is, all of this was completely avoidable.

But it will hit live anyway, and then it will be too late, because there will be no coming back.

tutsuraki · November 2

Can we bring back before-patch animations? The new ones are so broken, clumsy, and unsatisfying. In most cases the animations go crazy.

When you receive damage - the character model breaks and goes sideways.
When heal while blocking on tank - the same thing.

Ppl in high-end are using polymorphs just to avoid this cringe. My eyes hurt, and it is not only me.

Or, if you want to "forse" the new animations because it reduces the resources usage - probably make a toggle to use old animations / use new lighter animations.

ImpostorSyndrome · November 2

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi all, thanks for the feedback thus far. We have confirmed there is an issue when using a PS controller on a PC that is causing decreased game performance on the PTS, and we're actively working on getting this fixed as quickly as possible. Our theory is that this may be contributing to other issues some of you have been seeing such as missing ability hits and weaving issues. For those that have noticed a performance hit, could you confirm if you were using a controller or mouse & keyboard (and if the former, what type of controller)?

As for the handful of polymorphs that don't have the additive animations enabled, we are working on fixing those as well.

Thank you!

Old polymorphs are the only reason I still play the game because the new animations completely ruin the gameplay. It's a very strange idea to fix old polymorphs when the problems are clearly not with them.

lostineternity · November 2

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote:

As for the handful of polymorphs that don't have the additive animations enabled, we are working on fixing those as well.

Thank you!

Please don't do it! I will buy polymorphs from crown store just for a reason not to see this new *** animations...