Animation cancelling fix ?

uberowob16_ESO

So with the lack of good mmos recently, I've been pondering coming back to ESO. And while the limited actionkey set and a few other minor issues are still putting me off a bit, the one major gripe I had when I quit was the animation cancelling. I haven't been able to find any updated info about this anywhere so, here goes:

Has animation cancelling been fixed?

zornyan

No, and it's not going to be, zos said it's part of the game, a 'mechanic' if you will that rewards players for.perfect.timing etc etc.

Lightninvash

zornyan wrote: »

No, and it's not going to be, zos said it's part of the game, a 'mechanic' if you will that rewards players for.perfect.timing etc etc.

yeah what he said haha

zornyan

To be honest, combat would be dog slow without it, wrecking blow already feels like it takes ten years.to charge and hit someone, and some other moves would be just plain boring.

Combat has already been slowed down tremendously due to the battle spirit nerf, making every animation play out would make 1v1 last for hours.

Rioht

uberowob16_ESO wrote: »

So with the lack of good mmos recently, I've been pondering coming back to ESO. And while the limited actionkey set and a few other minor issues are still putting me off a bit, the one major gripe I had when I quit was the animation cancelling. I haven't been able to find any updated info about this anywhere so, here goes:

Has animation cancelling been fixed?

ZoS enjoys their hidden game mechanic that appear to.be bugs but are instead trouted as "designed".

PBpsy

The team announced some time ago that they are looking into also destroying this working game mechanic. It will take some time because they still have a few thing that they didn't completely break since 1.5 on their to do list.Anyway Soon TM.
Then they can take their ... and ... and .. enjoy.

Sylvyr

Funny thing, if it's "intentional" they should write up instructions on how to do it.

Jamersonb16_ESO

Sadly it's still not fixed yet and the claim by ZOS that's it's a 'feature' or somehow intended is ridiculous. Certain abilities were designed to have a cast time as they're more powerful and hit harder. If skills were supposed to be cast as quickly as a light attack/instant skill with no cast time then they would do less damage to compensate.

Unfortunately ZOS incompetently coded cast time abilities to trigger damage x number of seconds after the ability is started rather than at the end of the animation. People realised their mistake and started abusing it to deal more damage per second than intended, ZOS realised they had no way to fix it without rewriting miles and miles of code and so claimed it was somehow intentional (despite assessing that said abilities needed a cast time in the first place).

The upshot of all this is that everyone has to start glitching/abusing the broken mechanic to stay competitive and we end up with a nerf to all damage dealt in PvP as everyone was melting due to being hit with 5 abilities in a second and a half, most of which should have had a 1 or 2 second cast time....

Tectonaut

It's are all over the net, why would they need to? Its not their job to write player how to's on becoming a well timed player.

zornyan

It wasn't intentional, it's a mechanic thats a byproduct of the game design, it's how the physical game is coded, because every.move you make, it happens within a set timer, the animation is just there to make it look pretty, so people are literally just circumventing the long winded animation.

The problem is, to fix it they would have to completely recode half of the game to make every skill last the entire duration of each animation set for it, yet somehow reduce the skill time (when you have buffs for attack speed /procs etc) and keep the animation correct all at once.

That's probably never going to.happen, it would require a metric *** ton of work.

The only other way to fix it would be remove animations completly, don't forget how hard it would screw other aspects up, pressed wrecking blow but now that trials boss is about to hit you? Sorry you're going to have to stand there and die!

Want to cast scales but have just dodge rolled? Sorry going to have to sit there and take that crystal frags to the face
...

See my point?

QuebraRegra

zornyan wrote: »

To be honest, combat would be dog slow without it, wrecking blow already feels like it takes ten years.to charge and hit someone, and some other moves would be just plain boring.

Combat has already been slowed down tremendously due to the battle spirit nerf, making every animation play out would make 1v1 last for hours.

WB could afford to take longer... anicanceling on this is an exploit IMHO used to compensate for poor skillz.

LEARN TO PLAY .... without animation canceling :P

Sorry, the WB spam has been getting to me.

zornyan

It's probably spammed because it does reasonable damage and is accessible to anyone, my templars only other option for dps is biting jabs as a stamplar.

Surprise attack hits harder and far quicker imo

QuebraRegra

zornyan wrote: »

It's probably spammed because it does reasonable damage and is accessible to anyone, my templars only other option for dps is biting jabs as a stamplar.

Surprise attack hits harder and far quicker imo

Yes, it seems the current required meta.

Try that TOPPLING CHARGE into JABS... it's a killer.

zornyan

Really? I've been hearing about magika templars doing really really well in 1.7 (I'm on console) So I've been considering a respec.

I wonder, could a sword and board +2 hander heavy armor.imperial work as a magika/hybrid build....would love it...proper paladin/jedi type dude..

Emma_Overload

QuebraRegra wrote: »

zornyan wrote: »

To be honest, combat would be dog slow without it, wrecking blow already feels like it takes ten years.to charge and hit someone, and some other moves would be just plain boring.

Combat has already been slowed down tremendously due to the battle spirit nerf, making every animation play out would make 1v1 last for hours.

WB could afford to take longer... anicanceling on this is an exploit IMHO used to compensate for poor skillz.

LEARN TO PLAY .... without animation canceling :P

Sorry, the WB spam has been getting to me.

1) Animation cancelling is the ONLY way to get Wrecking Blow to cast in the amount of time listed on the tooltip. If you DON'T cancel the animation, it takes LONGER than the official time on the tooltip!

2) Animation cancelling does NOT allow you to cast consecutive Wrecking Blows faster than the interval created by the official cast time listed on the tooltip. One WB per second is all you get!

If you don't like Wrecking Blow spam, then you should petition @ZOS to increase the cast time to 2 seconds or something. But don't expect anyone else to support you, because the vast majority of ESO players don't want long cooldowns.

SirAndy

zornyan wrote: »

See my point?

Or, they could simply scale the animation speed to match the current ability cooldown timer. Animations can easily be scaled up/down in speed.

Got a buff reducing your cooldown from 1.3 seconds to 0.8 seconds? Play the animation faster to match the cooldown.

See my point?

Thecapeo

When did ZOS say it was a mechanic? The only quote I've ever seen regarding canceling was that it wasn't intended but, basically it's too late to do anything about it. Which is too bad because I much more enjoy combat with locked animations like the Witcher and Souls series. Some of the most thrilling fights I've ever had were duels in Dark Souls and Bloodborne. You actually have to balance faster vs slower attacks, look for or cause openings to take advantage of, and pay the price when you choose wrong.

Warraxx

Sylvyr wrote: »

Funny thing, if it's "intentional" they should write up instructions on how to do it.

so you are alive... contact me

Sylvyr

zornyan wrote: »

It wasn't intentional, it's a mechanic thats a byproduct of the game design, it's how the physical game is coded, because every.move you make, it happens within a set timer, the animation is just there to make it look pretty, so people are literally just circumventing the long winded animation.

The problem is, to fix it they would have to completely recode half of the game to make every skill last the entire duration of each animation set for it, yet somehow reduce the skill time (when you have buffs for attack speed /procs etc) and keep the animation correct all at once.

That's probably never going to.happen, it would require a metric *** ton of work.

The only other way to fix it would be remove animations completly, don't forget how hard it would screw other aspects up, pressed wrecking blow but now that trials boss is about to hit you? Sorry you're going to have to stand there and die!

Want to cast scales but have just dodge rolled? Sorry going to have to sit there and take that crystal frags to the face
...

See my point?

It's the new fad in gaming called Emergent Gameplay. Where things emerge out of the code unexpectedly and become a new game.

RSram

zornyan wrote: »

To be honest, combat would be dog slow without it, wrecking blow already feels like it takes ten years.to charge and hit someone, and some other moves would be just plain boring.

Combat has already been slowed down tremendously due to the battle spirit nerf, making every animation play out would make 1v1 last for hours.

Going by your logic, if the combat animation is such a drag on game play, why even have it? Just instantly cast the spell or weapon damage while the player just stands still. Why even have combat animation?

My point(s)?

1) Think of how many man hours when into designing all the animation that is wasted due to animation canceling.

2) By not allowing animation canceling you give the server more time to calculated more combat statistics which helps prevent game lag. Think of full combat animation as a type of cool down to pace the combat between players.

3) Instead of using a bullsh*t excuse to explain why animation canceling is allowed, why not make the combat animations shorter if the intent is to make combat faster?

4) IMO, the combat animation wind up should take longer for the most powerful skills and shorter for the weaker ones.

Sylvyr

Tectonaut wrote: »

It's are all over the net, why would they need to? Its not their job to write player how to's on becoming a well timed player.

Uhh, it's their game. It's called instructions. So game developers shouldn't write instructions for their games now?

If animation cancelling is a feature, imho, they should write official instructions on how to utilize their game feature.

That would also make it less hidden and officially supported. Not just based on user discover and what you happen across on the net, which isn't usually complete or accurate.

zornyan

SirAndy wrote: »

zornyan wrote: »

See my point?

Or, they could simply scale the animation speed to match the current ability cooldown timer. Animations can easily be scaled up/down in speed.

Got a buff reducing your cooldown from 1.3 seconds to 0.8 seconds? Play the animation faster to match the cooldown.

See my point?

Not really, they would still have to completely recode the game to.make each skill execute for each animation, which is quite a margin, going through every single skill, watching every animation play out, then making the actual skill execute at the right time.

That still won't fix the biggest issue people will cry about, you will get issues with blocking, so.your half way through casting a 3 sec skill and a boss is about to hit you for 20k and wipe you out...Oh wait.you can't block because your in an animation. Dead.

Jesus Christ imagine it in pvp when in a big battle, the lag would literially make.most.people defenceless. Its not.something that can fix. They don't have the time, or the manpower, and tbh they probably don't even give a ***.

RSram

zornyan wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

zornyan wrote: »

See my point?

Or, they could simply scale the animation speed to match the current ability cooldown timer. Animations can easily be scaled up/down in speed.

Got a buff reducing your cooldown from 1.3 seconds to 0.8 seconds? Play the animation faster to match the cooldown.

See my point?

Not really, they would still have to completely recode the game to.make each skill execute for each animation, which is quite a margin, going through every single skill, watching every animation play out, then making the actual skill execute at the right time.

That still won't fix the biggest issue people will cry about, you will get issues with blocking, so.your half way through casting a 3 sec skill and a boss is about to hit you for 20k and wipe you out...Oh wait.you can't block because your in an animation. Dead.

Jesus Christ imagine it in pvp when in a big battle, the lag would literially make.most.people defenceless. Its not.something that can fix. They don't have the time, or the manpower, and tbh they probably don't even give a ***.

You bring up a excellent point about blocking. I didn't even thing about blocking in my previous post. You need animation canceling to block quickly, but I think the biggest complain about animation canceling is that it is an undocumented function that works for skills other than blocking.

Excellent post BTW.

Thecapeo

That's the thing. If you commit to a big attack at the wrong time you should eat a ton of damage. But if you pull it off you're rewarded by delivering big damage. That's how it's supposed to work. Thats the point of having different casting times in the first place.

Jamersonb16_ESO

zornyan wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

zornyan wrote: »

See my point?

Or, they could simply scale the animation speed to match the current ability cooldown timer. Animations can easily be scaled up/down in speed.

Got a buff reducing your cooldown from 1.3 seconds to 0.8 seconds? Play the animation faster to match the cooldown.

See my point?

Not really, they would still have to completely recode the game to.make each skill execute for each animation, which is quite a margin, going through every single skill, watching every animation play out, then making the actual skill execute at the right time.

That still won't fix the biggest issue people will cry about, you will get issues with blocking, so.your half way through casting a 3 sec skill and a boss is about to hit you for 20k and wipe you out...Oh wait.you can't block because your in an animation. Dead.

Jesus Christ imagine it in pvp when in a big battle, the lag would literially make.most.people defenceless. Its not.something that can fix. They don't have the time, or the manpower, and tbh they probably don't even give a ***.

The point isn't that you shouldn't be able to cancel an animation and perform a new action (ie block), it's that if you cancel an animation that action should also be cancelled. As I said it's terrible coding on ZOS's part that if an animation is started, the damage is automatically applied x seconds later, regardless of whether the full animation is played out or cancelled. Every other game with good mechanics only applies the damage if the animation is left to play - you cancel the animation and cast something else, you cancel the damage. Like it should be.

AtmaDarkwolf

I keep seeing how people claim its was 'intended' by the dev's and how they have (Repeatably) stated how its 'part of the games mechanic to reward timing' (Sorry, but how does 'tap block after starting cast' = 'timing skill' ? - timing to me used to be WHEN to activate the next skill to 'chain' skills, NOT 'how fast i can spam the next skill...)

Yet I never, ever, EVER saw anyone actually LINK to this 'official statement' - only another comes along stating how its 'officially part of the design'

Link/prove it or shut up about it being 'official'

Thank you.

anyways... skills should only 'activate' AFTER the animation, and blocking 'cancels' said animation (IE: you block to save your face from becoming a waffle, result is that your skill has to be re-started. Fair trade IMO)

zornyan

@Thecapeo it doesn't work like that though. Since every attack will do the same regardless to an enemy/boss as a regular attack, there's no reward for timing attacks in this game.

Not like something like bloodborne, where you have to dodge and time attacks perfectly, but if you attack an enemy just after they attack, you do a counter-attack doing massive damage, or if you stun the enemy mid attack, they are vulnerable to a finisher.

So it's like saying you would need to hit someone mid wrecking blow in order to use an executioner ability. Again in mmorpgs it's nearly impossible to.pull off due to Latency, which also leaves it open to abuse of basic Internet connections (like lag switches)

So you could end up with enemies that constantly interrupt you, whilst you can't hurt them, that would seriously hinder bother pve and pvp.

@Jamersonb16_ESO it doesn't work exactly like that, If I press wrecking blow then instantly hit block I just block, same with spell, you actually need to time it so the spell/ability 'windup' has happened, so the only bit you really cancel is the. 5 of a second or so of 'finishing' the animation.

AtmaDarkwolf

it wouldn't hurt to add that type of system, even if very limited.

Fact is, its just beyond silly that one can 'create effects' without having done anything (Physically) to cause said effect. It is NOT an 'official' game mechanic, rather its a failing on the dev's side and them being careful not to 'denounce' it publicly (as with so many other things) because they don't want to 'admit' their mistake and have to fix it. (Its one of those things they will 'get around to it' when 'they feel like it' (IE: after they squeeze all they can out of the cash cow part of it, selling junk in store, etc)

What I think is most embarrassing is the fact so many pvpers think they are 'skilled' because they can exploit a broken mechanic, then those same people will whine and moan when said mechanic is 'fixed' and claim how it 'ruined their game' - those SAME people who will chant 'L2P NOOB' about other things that are broken during 'game updates'

talon_vib14_ESO

This topic always reminds me of the time they said the mount infinite sprint was a feature. That horses can sprint indefinitely even when stamina runs out but the newer mounts would have their own "special features". Nope its a bug and all mounts are the same.

tplink3r1

zornyan wrote: »

No, and it's not going to be, zos said it's part of the game, a 'mechanic' if you will that rewards players for.perfect.timing etc etc.

more like a mechanic to reward players with low ping.

MrGrimey

Stop trying to dumb down the game