Animation cancelling really is an exploit (dead horse, I know)

firstdecan

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

guybrushtb16_ESO wrote: »

Ruebs wrote: »

Without anni canceling, ESO's combat would be the slowest and clunkyest of any MMO I've played.
It's unintended, but thank Azura it exists.

You must not have played many mmos yet then. The overwhelming majority of them uses some kind of global cooldown system with varying lengths, the biggest so far being FFXIV with a whopping 2.5s.

And FFXIV's battle mechanics are some of the most painful I've ever endured.

IMO animation canceling is a non-issue, it exists, it's well documented, whatever the armchair lawyers may want to carry on screaming about it isn't an exploit as far as the only people that matter are concerned .. use it or shut the hell up about is my answer to them.

Me, I don't use it, I don't feel the need, but then I'm not trying to be one of the kool kiddies.

I don't disagree with this, and to be honest I'm puzzled at the need for the vitriol in your post. What I have said is it's an exploit because it's something that is not explained to players. It's an unintended feature which is known only to a subset of players. That is an exploit. If they simply made animation cancelling part of the tutorial (the wailing prison), the advantages of it would be known to all players. At that point, it is now an intended game mechanic and known to players, even the ones who don't scour the internet looking for tidbits on the game.

ozmorgudduth

Every single person in this topic complaining about animation cancelling hasn't got a clue what they are talking about.

Animation canceling can't be fixed and will never be fixed. It is unintentional but it also is integral part of the main and most attractive game mechanic. NO COOLDOWNS.

ZOS stated that they will not introduce cooldowns. This is the nail in the coffin.

Because there is no ability cooldowns there has to be some hierarchy between different actions that player can take.

For an example blocking. All of us can hit block whenever we like and it will do what we expect from it instantly. It has to have highest priority over anything actually happening while block is being activated to make it work as intended.

It's exactly the same with abilities with few exceptions, but in general all instant abilities have priority over light/heavy attack, so the moment you hit your ability it happens instantly canceling light/heavy attack.

hierarchy: lowest>highest

light/heavy>instant abilities(not all of them)>block/bash

I'll say it again for animation canceling to be "FIXED" you have to have cooldowns. Partially, cast time abilities stop animation cancelling for the duration of the cast time. But it's not going to happen, because they will not change the game completely...

It's not WoW and it never will be, if you want to play something with cooldown management go play it.

You can bury this dead horse once and for all now.

smeeprocketnub19_ESO

firstdecan wrote: »

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

guybrushtb16_ESO wrote: »

Ruebs wrote: »

Without anni canceling, ESO's combat would be the slowest and clunkyest of any MMO I've played.
It's unintended, but thank Azura it exists.

You must not have played many mmos yet then. The overwhelming majority of them uses some kind of global cooldown system with varying lengths, the biggest so far being FFXIV with a whopping 2.5s.

And FFXIV's battle mechanics are some of the most painful I've ever endured.

IMO animation canceling is a non-issue, it exists, it's well documented, whatever the armchair lawyers may want to carry on screaming about it isn't an exploit as far as the only people that matter are concerned .. use it or shut the hell up about is my answer to them.

Me, I don't use it, I don't feel the need, but then I'm not trying to be one of the kool kiddies.

I don't disagree with this, and to be honest I'm puzzled at the need for the vitriol in your post. What I have said is it's an exploit because it's something that is not explained to players. It's an unintended feature which is known only to a subset of players. That is an exploit. If they simply made animation cancelling part of the tutorial (the wailing prison), the advantages of it would be known to all players. At that point, it is now an intended game mechanic and known to players, even the ones who don't scour the internet looking for tidbits on the game.

your definition of an exploit is incorrect. Unintended feature are different, because the devs accept them and you will not get punished for using them. It is also not something the devs feel the need to fix, nor is it actually considered broken.

Not an exploit.

maxilaub17_ESO

firstdecan wrote: »

I know animation cancelling is used for much more than this, but this is what proved to me what I'm missing out on by not using it.

I don't care when people use it manually the problem is too many in PvP macro this stuff and that is cheating not skill.

smeeprocketnub19_ESO

So if I macro a button to switch to a spot on my potion wheel AND activate the potion, is that cheating?

Serious question.

maxilaub17_ESO

smeeprocketnub19_ESO wrote: »

So if I macro a button to switch to a spot on my potion wheel AND activate the potion, is that cheating?

Serious question.

The game doesn't have its own built in macro capability like some MMO's I've played, so atutomating a move in PvP that would take more time than a twitch response is an unfair advantage; however for the potion switch the advantage is small. The animation canceling of multiple moves is huge since a twitch can mess up the timing, or a miss a step, or hit the wrong key , where the macro is perfect every time, with a macro your automating PvP so now the player your attacking is fighting against a program that is perfect every time reducing the errors a real player can and will make against an opponent.

Voodoo

To those using the exuse that it is an exploit because not everyone knows about, I say this..

Not everyone knows about how to min/max their character, not everyone knows the best spells to use with their character, not everyone knows how to balance their resources, ect, ect. Are these all exploits!!? How does one learn how to get the best out of their character? They study, read, ask questions, visit forums!

I would never have known about this if I had not wanted to learn how to improve my character as I approach the vet ranks. ..I studied and read threads to help me be a better player. (just beat Molag Bal at lv 49 as a templar bow user- had to read what was the best approach for that fight).

Simply put. One needs to read and study to l2p if they want to min/max ...no different with AC, you read the forums or talk to guildies you will find out.

Nestor

If ZOS would just reduce the length of the animation in the first place to match the time it takes to charge a heavy attack, then this would not be an issue.

firstdecan

None of the things you mentioned are exploits because there are in game mechanisms to explain how it works, and they are intended mechanics. You're comparing apples to oranges.

Why are you opposed to sharing information with other players? What is wrong with having the animation cancelling explained in the tutorial? Why should people have to waste time perusing second hand resources, which often have third rate information, to understand a game mechanic that is going to remain in the game for the foreseeable future?

Voodoo wrote: »

To those using the exuse that it is an exploit because not everyone knows about, I say this..

Not everyone knows about how to min/max their character, not everyone knows the best spells to use with their character, not everyone knows how to balance their resources, ect, ect. Are these all exploits!!? How does one learn how to get the best out of their character? They study, read, ask questions, visit forums!

I would never have known about this if I had not wanted to learn how to improve my character as I approach the vet ranks. ..I studied and read threads to help me be a better player. (just beat Molag Bal at lv 49 as a templar bow user- had to read what was the best approach for that fight).

Simply put. One needs to read and study to l2p if they want to min/max ...no different with AC, you read the forums or talk to guildies you will find out.

GnatB

kaer426 wrote: »

hamon wrote: »

macros arnt agant the tos. otherwise they would ban outfitter and addons like that, they allow marcos for action bars and equipment. where it becomes against the tos is using a thrid party programme to play the game. IE botting. but macro addons are here just now.

ErykGrimm wrote: »

kaer426 wrote: »

hamon wrote: »

kaer426 wrote: »

It's the people who are macroing their animation cancelling that are exploiting this unintended feature.

no to be honest this is what happens when animation cancelling exists. folk develop macros to do it easily. which is why animation cancelling shouldn't exist. if animation cancelling becomes the norm, then why not use a macro. all your doing is saving your wrists from repetative strain.

because 3rd party macro's are against ToS? maybe?

Except its not against the ToS

You agree not to use any hardware or software or any other method of support that is not authorized by ZeniMax or that may in any way influence or advantage Your playing abilities, or influence or advantage Your use of the Services. Third party tools, the use of ‘bots’, “speed hacks”, “deep-link”, “page-scrape”, “robot”, “spider”, algorithm or other programs that copy or monitor any part of the Services (including, but not limited to, the Game(s) and/or forums), software that transmits, manipulates, or distributes (including, but are limited to, “mirroring”) the data stream or any aspect of the Services to another computer, server websites or other publication or distribution media, or software that permits You to use Services without human input are examples of methods not authorized by ZeniMax.

- If you can't make an add-on for it legitimately , it's against ToS
That's why there is no Wykkd's Animation Cancel Master add-on.
ZoS does not authorize combat macros. period.

I'd point out that that also technically means mice/keyboards/etc. that ZeniMax hasn't explicitly authorized are against the ToS too (which I believe is all of them. AFAIK they haven't explicitly authorized anything). Since playing with such "influences or advantages" your playing abilities. It basically gives them carte blanche to do whatever the heck they want.


If you really want to get technical, using a macro is just as much a violation of the ToS as using my mouse is.

(P.S. I think you mixed up your bolding. "Third Party Tools" is part of the list of "programs that copy or monitor any part of the services" that aren't allowed. Macros don't copy or monitor any part of the services. Also not sure why you bolded the "software that permits you to use services without human input" part. Macros require human input. When they become automated they're generally called bots.)

jeevin

The combat mechanic behind Animation Cancelling is totally unintended. The only reason it isn't considered an exploit from the devs perspective is that they have no way to fix it or to prevent players from using it to gain an dps advantage.

The intended active and reactive combat does not work as a result of the animation cancelling. How do you react to damage you are taking from attacks that have been cancelled and stacked with the next attack and so on? If you cancel an attack before the animation plays out the damage should not count or at the very least be diminished as a percentage of the animation that has played out.

GnatB

ozmorgudduth wrote: »

Because there is no ability cooldowns there has to be some hierarchy between different actions that player can take.

Not really. Just because you have no cooldowns doesn't mean they couldn't make it so you have to actually wait for an attack animations to finish before you can block. Or for a light attack animation to finish before you can use a skill. (Still don't see why there is any need for skills to cancel attacks. I'm wondering if that is a holdover from some sort of autoattack mechanic that they removed. Since attacks are manually triggered, there's no reason why you need to be able to interrupt them with skills, as they effectively *are* skills. Whereas if they were being triggered by some sort of autoattack mechanic, then it would be a pain trying to fit skills into the autoattack gaps. I understand why they decided to allow blocking to interrupt though. Really annoying on some games when you get locked into an attack animation and can't cancel out to block... though that isn't really all that uncommon, and the attack animations in ESO aren't really all that long anyways.)

Anyways, if they actually wanted to "fix" animation cancelling as a means of improving DPS, it'd be easy:
1. Add a minimum length of time to how long you hold a block/force entire bash to play
2. Remove skill cancelling attacks.

Done.

smeeprocketnub19_ESO

maxilaub17_ESO wrote: »

smeeprocketnub19_ESO wrote: »

So if I macro a button to switch to a spot on my potion wheel AND activate the potion, is that cheating?

Serious question.

The game doesn't have its own built in macro capability like some MMO's I've played, so atutomating a move in PvP that would take more time than a twitch response is an unfair advantage; however for the potion switch the advantage is small. The animation canceling of multiple moves is huge since a twitch can mess up the timing, or a miss a step, or hit the wrong key , where the macro is perfect every time, with a macro your automating PvP so now the player your attacking is fighting against a program that is perfect every time reducing the errors a real player can and will make against an opponent.

hmm this didn't really answer my question.

Is it cheating or not? Do you know if it is illegal per ZOS?

As it stands currently, all the other potions slots are useless to me.

maxilaub17_ESO

smeeprocketnub19_ESO wrote: »

maxilaub17_ESO wrote: »

smeeprocketnub19_ESO wrote: »

So if I macro a button to switch to a spot on my potion wheel AND activate the potion, is that cheating?

Serious question.

The game doesn't have its own built in macro capability like some MMO's I've played, so atutomating a move in PvP that would take more time than a twitch response is an unfair advantage; however for the potion switch the advantage is small. The animation canceling of multiple moves is huge since a twitch can mess up the timing, or a miss a step, or hit the wrong key , where the macro is perfect every time, with a macro your automating PvP so now the player your attacking is fighting against a program that is perfect every time reducing the errors a real player can and will make against an opponent.

hmm this didn't really answer my question.

Is it cheating or not? Do you know if it is illegal per ZOS?

As it stands currently, all the other potions slots are useless to me.

This the typical approach to an argument in the media or politics, right, wrong, black, white, unfortunately real life choices are far more often painted in shades of grey than absolutes like that. Per ZOS I have no idea if they consider it cheating, it takes a third party program to do it and they consider some third party programs legal and others cheating, you need to write them for their answer.

For PvP, macros essentially reduce fighting to a set of sub-programs a player runs in lieu of reacting and making the choices, it gives such players a false sense of actually being good at PvP. It's analogous to two people taking a math test where one uses a calculator and the other doesn't, when the one using the calculator gets a better grade he thinks he is smarter..... If ZOS wants everyone to have the ability to use macros for PvP attacks and defense they should build the capability into the game like other MMO's have, just as when taking the math test, either everyone should be supplied with calculators or their use should be banned.

Valamaar

This entire discussion is really a waste of time....follow the rules or stop playing its that easy...stop trying to argue like a child over something you have no control over....when you design your own game you get to make the rules until then....just shutup

rwood0604_ESO

Lol gotta love people that say if it was an exploit it would be fixed by now, I guess they don't know Zeni very well seems how 90% of all problems are never taken care of when they should be, I am pretty sure the bank duping exploit is more than enough evidence to support what I have said. I haven't even played this game in months and everything that was wrong with it when I left is still a problem now lol.

firstdecan

Valamaar wrote: »

This entire discussion is really a waste of time....follow the rules or stop playing its that easy...stop trying to be argue like a child over something you have no control over....when you design your own game you get to make the rules until then....just shutup

The problem is people aren't following the rules. They're using an unintended feature for their benefit. It's also unfair of you to assume paying subscribers should not vocalize their dissatisfaction. Other than comments like yours, this has been one of the more civil discussions on this forum. Grown adults know there is nothing childish about civilized discussion.

I also seem to think you missed the point of the thread. In the original post, I never said the exploit had to be fixed, I've simply been saying that it should be openly explained if it's not going to be fixed.