The problem isn't macros, it's animation cancelling, and we might be stuck with it.

ontheleftcoast

On the PC there is nothing ZOS can do to eliminate macro use. It's technically impossible because of a PC design roughly 40 years old. It's called "rollover". A long time ago, before many of you were even born, typing on computers was a lot like typing on a typewriter. If you pressed two keys at the same time bad things happened but then somebody figured out a solution -- rollover.

Why does this matter? Because rollover is indistinguishable from macros. Open up any text editor you want, even something as primitive as 'notepad.exe'. Next put your fingers over the keys on the home row (ASDF and HJKL for you QWERTY users). Now press and release all 8 keys at once. I'll do it three times -- dfklha khjlfa hjkladf -- that's rollover in action. Notice not all the keys are pressed, the 's' and 'j' keys didn't come thru the first time, the 'd' and 's' the next, and only the 's' was dropped on the last press. This is not the same as pressing all 8 keys in order without releasing them, that results in the following -- asdffffffff -- after some amount time the auto-repeat kicks in and the remaining keys are ignored.

OK, so because of the design of PC keyboards there is no way for ZOS to eliminate macro usage. We're stuck with it. Well, that gets back to the title, the problem is animation canceling. I know there are people who think they're the most awesome gamers in Tamriel because they've "mastered" attack weaving. No, you haven't "mastered" anything, you're taking advantage of a coding decision that ZOS has made most likely to deal with client/server transmission delays. Since every action you perform has to be sent to the server for processing they've decided that at some threshold the first action must be cancelled to allow the next one to start because it might have been caused by a packet being delayed. I can easily do this on my Sorcerer. On my main bar I have '4' bound to Conjured Ward and '5' bound to Critical Surge. If I press and release 4 then press and release 5 both animations play out but if I use rollover and press them at the same time only one animation plays. However I get both spells cast. That's rollover taking advantage of the ZOS coding decision on packet delays.

So, how do they fix it? I really don't know. I assume they have data showing that not cancelling some amount of animations sucks as badly if not worse. If that's the case then we're pretty much stuck with some amount of macroing on the PC. On the other hand it might be worth revisiting their decision to allow animation cancelling, perhaps it's not the necessary evil they thought it was.

KiraTsukasa

To quote a Bioware dev on the subject of animation cancelling during Mass Effect 3 multiplayer matches:

"Sounds to me like clever use of game mechanics."

Emma_Overload

Although I have no reason to doubt the technical issues you described are true, none of that is the reason for animation cancelling in ESO. Animation cancelling is simply an aesthetic decision by the game's designers... a visual side effect that has no bearing on the underlying mechanics of ESO's combat system.

What are those "underlying mechanics"? Cooldowns! Yes, even though the devs claimed at launch that ESO would have no cooldowns, there are in fact cooldowns hiding throughout ESO's combat system. The entire source of the "animation cancelling" controversy is the fact that the length of the animations does not always equal the length of the cooldown for the attack in question. Example: the full animation for Wrecking Blow is MUCH longer the the 1 second cast time. However, if you cast Wrecking Blow repeatedly at 1 second intervals, it cancels (shortens) it's own animation to match the length of the cooldown. Weapon attacks (light, heavy), block, interrupts, dodges and weapon swaps all have their own cast times, cooldowns and animations, some of which can cancel each others animations!

Why did ZOS add animation cancelling to ESO? Because all the alternatives were BAD. If the devs had coded ALL actions to lock out other actions until their animations were finished, combat in ESO would feel extremely sluggish and unresponsive. This is NOT what most players want from ESO, especially the players who came from a background of the Elder Scrolls single player games, which are known for their snappy combat. Animation cancelling is not a bug, it's a feature... and a good feature in my opinion.

ontheleftcoast

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

Why did ZOS add animation cancelling to ESO? Because all the alternatives were BAD. If the devs had coded ALL actions to lock out other actions until their animations were finished, combat in ESO would feel extremely sluggish and unresponsive. This is NOT what most players want from ESO, especially the players who came from a background of the Elder Scrolls single player games, which are known for their snappy combat. Animation cancelling is not a bug, it's a feature... and a good feature in my opinion.

There's another option -- make then animations match their cooldown times. Seriously, after the 3017th time casting Conjured Ward I really don't care how "awesome" the animation looks. I just want the damn spell effects. If Wrecking Blow's animation is twice as long as the effect takes then shorten the animation to match the effect's time. It would be harder to deal with decisions like, "We decided to make the Foo Morph on Bar take 0.1s longer" because they'd have to modify the animations and not just one number in a table somewhere.

Regardless, it seems like ZOS has made multiple decisions that mean we're stuck with macros and their benefits or problems. If that's the case than everyone should be free to use them all the time and ZOS should remove their ominous language about them in the Terms of Service.

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO

The game needs to put all abilities, your light and heavy weapon attacks and bash on a single GCD.
Block should be on a seperate GCD and you cannot trigger an attack GCD while block is being held.
Bar switching should be on its own GCD and it should be instantaneous

Light / heavy attack and bash should have seperate effects so that there is a definitive tactical reason for using them

firstdecan

ontheleftcoast wrote: »

.....
I can easily do this on my Sorcerer. On my main bar I have '4' bound to Conjured Wart and '5' bound to Critical Surge.
.....

Conjured Wart? Did you get that from the frog races?

KiraTsukasa

firstdecan wrote: »

ontheleftcoast wrote: »

.....
I can easily do this on my Sorcerer. On my main bar I have '4' bound to Conjured Wart and '5' bound to Critical Surge.
.....

Conjured Wart? Did you get that from the frog races?

Conjured Wart:

crowfl56

nice explanation thank you

ontheleftcoast

firstdecan wrote: »

ontheleftcoast wrote: »

.....
I can easily do this on my Sorcerer. On my main bar I have '4' bound to Conjured Wart and '5' bound to Critical Surge.
.....

Conjured Wart? Did you get that from the frog races?

Do you expect me to proofread? Yeesh, I'm a Computer Science geek, not an English Major dweeb!

KiraTsukasa

ontheleftcoast wrote: »

firstdecan wrote: »

ontheleftcoast wrote: »

.....
I can easily do this on my Sorcerer. On my main bar I have '4' bound to Conjured Wart and '5' bound to Critical Surge.
.....

Conjured Wart? Did you get that from the frog races?

Do you expect me to proofread? Yeesh, I'm a Computer Science geek, not an English Major dweeb!

I am too, which is where I learned how to type accurately.

nine9six

Nice contribute to the thread.

leepalmer95

Well it's not going away so either join them or get rekt.

You can cancel dawnbreaker animation which 1 hits vamps.

A Wb + Heavy attack weave (cancel WB animation) can easily get someone to 30%~ hp. Looks like their going to heavy attack you but then you midway through the air and get hit with a 20% boostes heavy attack without even hitting the ground.

KanedaSyndrome

Animation cancelling is a display of ZoS incompetency. It was never meant to have been in the game, and in the beginning I believe it was considered a bug, but then they realized they didn't have the muscle to fix it, so it became a "feature", which completely broke any balancing in the game, especially PvE, which wasn't balanced with animation cancelling in mind, as you can't expect players to use this or even know of it. But this has the effect that I solo public group dungeons, even the group events inside I solo.

I solo stuff meant for 4 players. That's broken balance.

MrGrimey

Go play a turn based rpg or final fantasy with its boring global cool down. There's about 100 more important issues that they need to address before they even think about animation canceling

Malediktus

A good reason to never play "competive" PvP in this game

Rinmaethodain

In ESO live last month, the one that included Lead Animation designer (they were showing detailed models of IC enemies) he said that they are aware of animation cancelling and they have plans to do something with it.

Soon(tm) the days of animation cancelling exploiters might be done.

Zorrashi

MaximusDargus wrote: »

In ESO live last month, the one that included Lead Animation designer (they were showing detailed models of IC enemies) he said that they are aware of animation cancelling and they have plans to do something with it.

Soon(tm) the days of animation cancelling exploiters might be done.

But what if they do something that actually encourages animation cancelling?

JacksonCarter13

Totally dude. There will still be macros but eliminate the animation canceling make heavy block and light on the same like someone said above and simply make it so you have to finish your Animation. For someone like me this would be amazing I can weave naturally But my skill level gets messed with with these stupid macros and shield stacking. But yes no more animation canceling would be amazing!!!

Emma_Overload

ontheleftcoast wrote: »

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

Why did ZOS add animation cancelling to ESO? Because all the alternatives were BAD. If the devs had coded ALL actions to lock out other actions until their animations were finished, combat in ESO would feel extremely sluggish and unresponsive. This is NOT what most players want from ESO, especially the players who came from a background of the Elder Scrolls single player games, which are known for their snappy combat. Animation cancelling is not a bug, it's a feature... and a good feature in my opinion.

There's another option -- make then animations match their cooldown times. Seriously, after the 3017th time casting Conjured Ward I really don't care how "awesome" the animation looks. I just want the damn spell effects. If Wrecking Blow's animation is twice as long as the effect takes then shorten the animation to match the effect's time. It would be harder to deal with decisions like, "We decided to make the Foo Morph on Bar take 0.1s longer" because they'd have to modify the animations and not just one number in a table somewhere.

Regardless, it seems like ZOS has made multiple decisions that mean we're stuck with macros and their benefits or problems. If that's the case than everyone should be free to use them all the time and ZOS should remove their ominous language about them in the Terms of Service.

Shortening the animations would work for some situations, but not all. In some combinations of abilities and and weapon attacks, the cooldown is less than 300 milliseconds between them, which is not enough time for a meaningful animation. I don't think there is much difference between a full animation that happens in the blink of an eye versus one that is cut off.

rager82b14_ESO

Or just use macros. Since developers don't care.

PBpsy

KanedaSyndrome wrote: »

Animation cancelling is a display of ZoS incompetency. It was never meant to have been in the game, and in the beginning I believe it was considered a bug, but then they realized they didn't have the muscle to fix it, so it became a "feature", which completely broke any balancing in the game, especially PvE, which wasn't balanced with animation cancelling in mind, as you can't expect players to use this or even know of it. But this has the effect that I solo public group dungeons, even the group events inside I solo.

I solo stuff meant for 4 players. That's broken balance.

What? You do not need any AC to solo any public dungeons.You do not even need AC to solo instances with a sorc.

Also why this dumb thread again?

Aletheion

I suppose there are just different play styles. Some like slow, heavy hitting weapons, and others like speed attacks.

It's not uncommon for a game to cater to both combat styles depending on class, weapon, stacked passives, etc.

The fact that so many prefer to cancel the animations only goes to show how many people prefer fast paced combat.

For me, it's fast paced. If one type of weapon hit for 10k in one hit (like a large 2 hander) and a smaller weapon hit for 2k per hit, but could hit 5x faster, I'd personally take the smaller weapon strictly out of play style preference.

-Aletheion

Jura23

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

Although I have no reason to doubt the technical issues you described are true, none of that is the reason for animation cancelling in ESO. Animation cancelling is simply an aesthetic decision by the game's designers... a visual side effect that has no bearing on the underlying mechanics of ESO's combat system.

What are those "underlying mechanics"? Cooldowns! Yes, even though the devs claimed at launch that ESO would have no cooldowns, there are in fact cooldowns hiding throughout ESO's combat system. The entire source of the "animation cancelling" controversy is the fact that the length of the animations does not always equal the length of the cooldown for the attack in question. Example: the full animation for Wrecking Blow is MUCH longer the the 1 second cast time. However, if you cast Wrecking Blow repeatedly at 1 second intervals, it cancels (shortens) it's own animation to match the length of the cooldown. Weapon attacks (light, heavy), block, interrupts, dodges and weapon swaps all have their own cast times, cooldowns and animations, some of which can cancel each others animations!

Why did ZOS add animation cancelling to ESO? Because all the alternatives were BAD. If the devs had coded ALL actions to lock out other actions until their animations were finished, combat in ESO would feel extremely sluggish and unresponsive. This is NOT what most players want from ESO, especially the players who came from a background of the Elder Scrolls single player games, which are known for their snappy combat. Animation cancelling is not a bug, it's a feature... and a good feature in my opinion.

I don't necessarily disagree, but in that case they should have made the animations shorter so they match the cooldowns.

ShadowDisciple

why not just learn to animation cancel..its preety easy..i did it almost accidentaly...tap mouse and ability button rougly the same time and voila

Jura23

ShadowDisciple wrote: »

why not just learn to animation cancel..its preety easy..i did it almost accidentaly...tap mouse and ability button rougly the same time and voila

Not everybody who can likes it fyi.

kevlarto_ESO

It was developer on the July 22nd live show that said some changes were coming to animation cancelling have not heard anything since then so don't know if it's still happening or not.

Digiman

What's worse are the defenders on this animation cancelling. Imagine a baseball player swing to hit the ball then just runs before he completes the follow through after the ball is hit. You wouldn't call it clever, you would think reality is breaking.

Hell a duel between swordsman would be a spectacle if physics allowed animation cancelling.

When it comes to combat you have to take into account the speed of an attack and the followthrough of the attack, it what makes combat more immersive, but this is just an abuse of a system that ZoS doesn't want to deal with and decided to endorse it like a writer does when he make mistake in the continuation of his story.

It get's even more stupider when people refer to "mastering" this as skill, when it so simple a robot can do it... oh wait they are doing it with macros.

The solution I can come up with isn't pretty but I think the effects of those being animation canceled should be reduced to 50%. At the least it prevents people from feeling stuck when they think they made a mistake and at the most it prevents the rampant abuse of animation canceling as a means to capitalize and an obvious problem with the game.

It's not hard to chain priorities to cut the animation time to zilch then end it with a block or dodge cast.

rager82b14_ESO

Digiman wrote: »

What's worse are the defenders on this animation cancelling. Imagine a baseball player swing to hit the ball then just runs before he completes the follow through after the ball is hit. You wouldn't call it clever, you would think reality is breaking.

Hell a duel between swordsman would be a spectacle if physics allowed animation cancelling.

When it comes to combat you have to take into account the speed of an attack and the followthrough of the attack, it what makes combat more immersive, but this is just an abuse of a system that ZoS doesn't want to deal with and decided to endorse it like a writer does when he make mistake in the continuation of his story.

It get's even more stupider when people refer to "mastering" this as skill, when it so simple a robot can do it... oh wait they are doing it with macros.

The solution I can come up with isn't pretty but I think the effects of those being animation canceled should be reduced to 50%. At the least it prevents people from feeling stuck when they think they made a mistake and at the most it prevents the rampant abuse of animation canceling as a means to capitalize and an obvious problem with the game.

It's not hard to chain priorities to cut the animation time to zilch then end it with a block or dodge cast.

Well said, and truth be told. It is embarrassing that a developer would come out and say it is a feature. I never laughed so hard watching a developer make a fool of themselves. The same developers who talked about immersion, and made such a big deal of it. Now support a invis swing that hits the target.

It is laughable, and it is sad. One developer says it was unintended, the next says it is a feature. They are clueless.

lathbury

Digiman wrote: »

What's worse are the defenders on this animation cancelling. Imagine a baseball player swing to hit the ball then just runs before he completes the follow through after the ball is hit. You wouldn't call it clever, you would think reality is breaking.

Hell a duel between swordsman would be a spectacle if physics allowed animation cancelling.

When it comes to combat you have to take into account the speed of an attack and the followthrough of the attack, it what makes combat more immersive, but this is just an abuse of a system that ZoS doesn't want to deal with and decided to endorse it like a writer does when he make mistake in the continuation of his story.

It get's even more stupider when people refer to "mastering" this as skill, when it so simple a robot can do it... oh wait they are doing it with macros.

The solution I can come up with isn't pretty but I think the effects of those being animation canceled should be reduced to 50%. At the least it prevents people from feeling stuck when they think they made a mistake and at the most it prevents the rampant abuse of animation canceling as a means to capitalize and an obvious problem with the game.

It's not hard to chain priorities to cut the animation time to zilch then end it with a block or dodge cast.

So simple a robot can do it lol when robots are used to complete difficult precision tasks. Also Macros are to unreliable and result in a dps loss plus are against TOS dont know about you but I wouldnt risk an account ban for lower DPS and less flexibility. Also you say everybody who does it is using macros I'd love to see your data on this.

Your last statement proves that you dont understand how the gcd on skills, regular attacks and blocking work.

Digiman

lathbury wrote: »

Digiman wrote: »

What's worse are the defenders on this animation cancelling. Imagine a baseball player swing to hit the ball then just runs before he completes the follow through after the ball is hit. You wouldn't call it clever, you would think reality is breaking.

Hell a duel between swordsman would be a spectacle if physics allowed animation cancelling.

When it comes to combat you have to take into account the speed of an attack and the followthrough of the attack, it what makes combat more immersive, but this is just an abuse of a system that ZoS doesn't want to deal with and decided to endorse it like a writer does when he make mistake in the continuation of his story.

It get's even more stupider when people refer to "mastering" this as skill, when it so simple a robot can do it... oh wait they are doing it with macros.

The solution I can come up with isn't pretty but I think the effects of those being animation canceled should be reduced to 50%. At the least it prevents people from feeling stuck when they think they made a mistake and at the most it prevents the rampant abuse of animation canceling as a means to capitalize and an obvious problem with the game.

It's not hard to chain priorities to cut the animation time to zilch then end it with a block or dodge cast.

So simple a robot can do it lol when robots are used to complete difficult precision tasks. Also Macros are to unreliable and result in a dps loss plus are against TOS dont know about you but I wouldnt risk an account ban for lower DPS and less flexibility. Also you say everybody who does it is using macros I'd love to see your data on this.

Your last statement proves that you dont understand how the gcd on skills, regular attacks and blocking work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpZa4c-WZoE

Nuff said.

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Nothing about macros being illegal

Zorcha

ontheleftcoast wrote: »

On my main bar I have '4' bound to Conjured Ward and '5' bound to Critical Surge. If I press and release 4 then press and release 5 both animations play out but if I use rollover and press them at the same time only one animation plays. However I get both spells cast. That's rollover taking advantage of the ZOS coding decision on packet delays.

This would explain why i get hit with 4 abilities at the same time from their opening attack (particularly a certain nightblade on azuras). This game is so laughable