A desperate plea for ZOS: Please remove Animation cancelling..

jrkhan

Hiero_Glyph wrote: »

jrkhan wrote: »

Xeven wrote: »

jrkhan wrote: »

Xeven wrote: »

@Ezarath @FENGRUSH @LeftyLucy @Gilliamtherogue @Anyone else who supports animation canceling (including myself)...

I use animation canceling extensively and have never had any complaints until recently. The OP did a good job of pointing out my recently discoverd beef with it.

Every "good" stam build is now bash canceling everything to the point where you can't even see what abilities they are using. I'll use reflective scales as an example. As a magsorc when I see wings flap an internal clock starts ticking and I instinctively cast any proced frags as soon as the timer is up. It is extremely potent when timed with a curse, and I don't even have to think about it or look for any other effects.

You can't do that anymore because now you will never actually see a "good" DK flap. You have to watch for the orange aura around the DK to disappear (yes I have adapted to this new playstyle). The problem with this is that the orange aura does not provide any clear feedback about when the ability was used or when it will wear off.

What you end up with is a combat system where all you ever actually see is light attacks and bashes, and I don't think that's what anyone really wants long term. I have not made any firm opinions on how to fix this yet, but as of right now I'm ok with canceling light/heavy attack animations with abilities. I am NOT ok with canceling ability animations with bash/block.

I agree with your assessment, but disagree with the conclusion.
Animation cancelling, the combat mechanic (immediately using block/bash after an instant abilty) is completely unrelated to the client side animation that plays.
The terminology is unfortunate.
From a combat perspective, abilities are instant. There's really no 'cancelling' in the combat system.
It's incumbent on the ZOS animation team to provide us with animations that convey the game state accurately.
Some form of animation blending, that allows a visual of both wing flap and blocking, would be ideal.
Eliminating the ability to perform those actions is not something I'd agree with.

I think there are two separate issues:
The animation associated with using an instant and then blocking is flawed
The ability to use an instant and then block is undesirable/favors those with low ping and high fps disproportionately.

I can agree with the first.
I can't agree with the second.
I really would hate to have to choose between the damage shield that saves me from the daedroth fire, and the dodge roll to avoid the skull projectile.
I'm not sure people really understand how impossible certain content would be without being able to use block/bash/dodge immediately after an instant, and have both apply.

Yes of course these abilities are instant so canceling the animation does not actually help the ability itself, it does however do more damage within the same GCD (in the case of bash canceling) and denies your opponent any feedback as to what abilities you are actually using (this is the broken bit IMO). We may as well strafe back and forth with no animations at all if this is the direction of optimal PvP.

I dont know how to fix it though. If you disallow bash/block canceling, then you take away some reactive game play, but if you allow players to cancel every single animation with a bash, you also take away reactive game play because nobody can see wtf you are doing.

My instinct is to hide the bash/block animations behind ability animations, that way you can still block/bash in the middle of an ability but your opponent will still be aware of the abilities that you are using. In this way you can still bash for that extra bit of DPS, but I can still see wtf you are doing otherwise.

What you are looking for is better animation blending.
It's an animation problem, not a game mechanic problem.

You can have your cake and eat it too - it just needs to be visually apparent in the scenario you described that the dk cast reflective scales, and the dk is blocking.

That should be possible by blending the scales animation with the block animation - or if that looks like a flailing ragdoll - a custom animation.

And blending requires an animation to be apparent in order to transition it from one to the next. If you can clip the entire animation from start to finish then there really isn't a way to blend it naturally. It's no different then weaving a light attack only for the game to play the sound of the hit during the skill or bash animation. The game knows what is happening but simply does not have time to visually represent that information so it just overlays the sound effect during another animation. The only way to fix this is to insert defined portions of each animation that cannot be clipped short. This would also make the GCD far less of an issue so it could potentially be removed as well.

Yes, quite obviously the skill animation should not be 'clipped' but rather 'blended with' the block/bash

Do you want to talk about this in terms of bones, rigs, and weight painting?
ESO blends animations all over the place to represent multiple things happening simultaneously.

You do not need to have unclipable frames for this to occur.

For example, no number of frames in a walk animation are required before blending in a head turn animation.

Restating the problem:
The animation does not provide enough information to let the user know what is occurring.
I'm saying 'change the animation'
Many people are saying 'change the game mechanics'

It's not addressing the core of the problem.

Ezareth

Hiero_Glyph wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Maim wrote: »

Debate this all you want. When I notice that mashing buttons, coupled with mild latency and a 2H weapon equates to me 'weaving' *coughwhatabullspitwaytojustifybrokenmechanicscough* a heavy attack and wrecking blow spam in less time than it should take to do both I'm bothered by this. O wait. Been using this now as those big clunky TWO HANDED (read as SLOW, HEAVY, DIFFICULT TO WEILD) weapons slice through the air faster than a set of daggers???? Animation cancel a Steel Tornado (with that room clearing reach?????) with block. Cast faster, do more damage on a high area execution aoe....

I'm sorry. Leave animation cancelling alone like all those people who depend on it for their DPS numbers want you to. Leave it alone, but for the sake of hoping that something that occurs in this game MAKES ANY SENSE AT ALL for all that you do, REMOVE THE DAMAGE THAT OCCURS WHEN YOU CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL a skill in exchange for something relevant to the course of your combat.

Gonna animation cancel payment of subscription. It won't actually charge my credit card, but I'll still get ESOPlus membership status. Sound about right?

Total falsehoods. You can't cast anything faster by animation cancelling it. Block casting Steel tornato allows you to cast it at exactly the same speed as spamming it normally except you are then blocking (and no longer regenning Stam) while you use it.

The fact that 4 people agree with you and think this is a thing shows just the kind of people we're dealing with here.

Hiero_Glyph wrote: »

@jrkhan

No instant ability is actually instant in the sense that it deals damage the moment you press the button. All instant abilities have an animation that begins to play the instant you press the button. The only way for an instant ability to deal damage at that exact moment is if you animation cancel. This was a huge problem for Dawnbreaker as it applied not only the initial damage but the full DoT all at once when it was animation canceled. This is just one example of how poorly animation canceling is programmed by ZOS. Even when you weave light attacks you will hear the sound of the attack while performing another action. The game simply does not know what to do when you animation cancel as it tries to apply multiple effects simultaneously, which is why it is so broken.

As for latency, this causes all the inputs to be delayed. you can still animation cancel but your response time will be delayed so if you light attack, skill, bash then it will take slightly longer for all of these inputs to occur. This is no different then my shooting at ghosts example that occurs in many shooters. The point being that as all of the inputs are delayed the player with high latency will be weaving slower even if they input the commands just as fast as a low latency player.

Regarding fps drops, these can actually cause inputs to be missed by the game. So if you gap close, light attack, skill and that skill has a conditional range then the game cannot perform that action unless it properly performs the previous actions. This is also why spamming just one skill is far more consistent even during fps drops. Likewise, weapon swapping can be delayed and inputs lost since certain conditions are no longer met. Just the other night I was weapon swap canceling and the next thing I knew I was on the wrong bar casting the wrong skills since the game dropped my weapon swap input. This can also happen with CCs as you may be affected after you have input commands and are just waiting for the game to catch-up but the CC invalidates those inputs.

Simply not true. The game has networking logic built in to account for latency. All good multiplayer games have had this in the past decade of gaming. Your actions responses will still be received by the server exactly as a player who has a sub 100 ping would be received...the only difference is the communication back to your client. I animation cancel with 300+ ping all the time, (my internet is garbage many times) and other than the obvious latency issues caused by my connection I don't have any issues chaining various commands together.

By the very definition of the term latency there is no way your response time is the same if your connection is slower. I never stated anywhere that this delay is significant but noted how when chaining multiple actions there will be slight delays throughout as it takes longer for the server to recognize and register the input. Again, anyone who has played a competitive shooter undertands how this works as even with things like networking logic, unless all players are in the same room, some of them will get updates faster than others. The famous example is that you shoot first but still die, only to see in the killcam that you never even fired a shot. No amount of logic will offset latency unless you are delaying every player to the slowest connection rate, which is not what happens. For most players this difference is imperceptible, but it is still present and can become noticeable if other factors compound it. How often have you tried to Bolt Escape only to have the game take a full second before registering the command? This issue is not exclusive to fps drops either but is far more pronounced when they do occur.

EDIT: Also, your ping is just an average and does not mean that your connection never spikes. As a result, some connections may spike more frequently than others and the result is a perceptible delay despite otherwise being stable with a ~300 ping.

This would be true if all the player abilities that you "Animation Cancel" with were dependent upon server responses. Every one except weapon swap (Which almost no one uses)...light attack, heavy attack, block, dodge roll , Bash all are 100% client based and not impacted by latency.

Ezareth

JaJaLuka wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Maim wrote: »

Debate this all you want. When I notice that mashing buttons, coupled with mild latency and a 2H weapon equates to me 'weaving' *coughwhatabullspitwaytojustifybrokenmechanicscough* a heavy attack and wrecking blow spam in less time than it should take to do both I'm bothered by this. O wait. Been using this now as those big clunky TWO HANDED (read as SLOW, HEAVY, DIFFICULT TO WEILD) weapons slice through the air faster than a set of daggers???? Animation cancel a Steel Tornado (with that room clearing reach?????) with block. Cast faster, do more damage on a high area execution aoe....

I'm sorry. Leave animation cancelling alone like all those people who depend on it for their DPS numbers want you to. Leave it alone, but for the sake of hoping that something that occurs in this game MAKES ANY SENSE AT ALL for all that you do, REMOVE THE DAMAGE THAT OCCURS WHEN YOU CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL a skill in exchange for something relevant to the course of your combat.

Gonna animation cancel payment of subscription. It won't actually charge my credit card, but I'll still get ESOPlus membership status. Sound about right?

Total falsehoods. You can't cast anything faster by animation cancelling it. Block casting Steel tornato allows you to cast it at exactly the same speed as spamming it normally except you are then blocking (and no longer regenning Stam) while you use it.

The fact that 4 people agree with you and think this is a thing shows just the kind of people we're dealing with here.

Hiero_Glyph wrote: »

@jrkhan

No instant ability is actually instant in the sense that it deals damage the moment you press the button. All instant abilities have an animation that begins to play the instant you press the button. The only way for an instant ability to deal damage at that exact moment is if you animation cancel. This was a huge problem for Dawnbreaker as it applied not only the initial damage but the full DoT all at once when it was animation canceled. This is just one example of how poorly animation canceling is programmed by ZOS. Even when you weave light attacks you will hear the sound of the attack while performing another action. The game simply does not know what to do when you animation cancel as it tries to apply multiple effects simultaneously, which is why it is so broken.

As for latency, this causes all the inputs to be delayed. you can still animation cancel but your response time will be delayed so if you light attack, skill, bash then it will take slightly longer for all of these inputs to occur. This is no different then my shooting at ghosts example that occurs in many shooters. The point being that as all of the inputs are delayed the player with high latency will be weaving slower even if they input the commands just as fast as a low latency player.

Regarding fps drops, these can actually cause inputs to be missed by the game. So if you gap close, light attack, skill and that skill has a conditional range then the game cannot perform that action unless it properly performs the previous actions. This is also why spamming just one skill is far more consistent even during fps drops. Likewise, weapon swapping can be delayed and inputs lost since certain conditions are no longer met. Just the other night I was weapon swap canceling and the next thing I knew I was on the wrong bar casting the wrong skills since the game dropped my weapon swap input. This can also happen with CCs as you may be affected after you have input commands and are just waiting for the game to catch-up but the CC invalidates those inputs.

Simply not true. The game has networking logic built in to account for latency. All good multiplayer games have had this in the past decade of gaming. Your actions responses will still be received by the server exactly as a player who has a sub 100 ping would be received...the only difference is the communication back to your client. I animation cancel with 300+ ping all the time, (my internet is garbage many times) and other than the obvious latency issues caused by my connection I don't have any issues chaining various commands together.

Actually using a simply example such as light attack -> flame lash -> shield bash your burst damage is certainly upped by a margin, it may or may not win you the fight but the fact remains it does increase your burst. That particular example is a weaker one, but perhaps using dawnbreaker and cancelling that, it certainly does hit you much faster and without warning.
I'm sure you've tried it, and I assume it just slipped your mind because you're usually pretty spot on with some facts, but if you haven't, go up to an enemy and try dawnbreaker with and without cancelling the animation with a shield bash and you definitely see a difference. You only need to examine a certain former EP emperor's tactics (NA server PC, name starts with M, not shaming, just using as an example) using dawnbreaker to see this in action, in fact I think he released a video playing this style. Those are just some examples.
On the chaining commands together, I agree with you in that 200 - 250 ping won't stop you from AC yourself, but it's seeing it coming that's an issue. For me there have been times it has definitely made a difference in that I block something on my screen, only for that damage to still land in full.

I've never successfully been able to pull off a lightattack > ability >bash combo that I like but I use a Deep slash > Bash combo on my NB and it drains my stamina fast.

And Meth and every other cookie cutter sorc build using Dawnbreaker out there used it for the Bug with the dot hitting the same time as the actual hit. I know some abilities can be "front-loaded" in that 1 second space of time by animation cancelling them like shield casting and dawnbreaker etc but the advantage was pretty minor.

jrkhan

Jowrik wrote: »

As early players probably know, Animation Cancelling was never an intended combat mechanic.

Looking back at it, this thread was off from the first sentence.
Animation canceling is not a combat mechanic.
If anything it's an unintended behavior of the animation system

The solution is to blend the animation instead of cancel it.
End of thread!

Ezareth

laced wrote: »

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

usmcjdking wrote: »

OdinForge wrote: »

Jowrik wrote: »

OdinForge wrote: »

There isn't anything wrong with animation canceling as it stands, it's an extra layer of responsiveness that many people enjoy.

Taking it away would slow down combat way too much.

Essentially you could speed up the animations, and still achieve the same thing as animation skipping allows today. The benefit would be that you would also get full complete good looking animations, instead of the invisible/spasm/half-finished fidgeting hits we have today.

No that's not how it works.

Animation canceling is a layer of "skill", as in it's something one should practice to get better at to do more consistently. The game can be viewed as a mindless button smash, but removing canceling and speeding up animations would worsen this. It separates one person from another, allows for variations in build numbers that otherwise wouldn't exist if everyone consistently hit at the same speed.

In the case of ESO, animation canceling is good.

lol wtf. Layer of skill? Animation cancelling is the exact definition of button mashing. Mash buttons with no respect to your enemy.

Animation cancelling, for the sake of this thread can be fixed. Damage simply needs to be tied to the ending animation frames instead of halfway through.

Out of all the unnecessary "solutions" to this imaginary problem, yours is the worst I've ever seen. People would waste time on cancelled attacks frequently... it would be incredibly frustrating. Then, in order to compensate, players would slow their attacks WAY down, so slow that they were wasting a second or more in between attacks, just to make sure they didn't miss one. And THEN you know what would happen?

Everyone and their mother would start using MACROS in order to time their attacks perfectly so that they don't waste time or cancel attacks by mistake. Your "solution" would cause more cheating than ESO has seen yet.

Because people aren't using macros now?

Only the bad players if anyone.

a.skelton92 wrote: »

People have just got too used to being able to take advantage of this unintended floor in the combat system and try justifying its use by claiming it "adds something" or "takes skill" to use. It takes more skill to steadily kill someone whilst using the appropriate interrupts/ cc's on time etc than it does killing someone before they even know they are in a fight. Thats just obvious.

Imagine if other games like WoW for example had a similar glitch.. Mages were able to fire 5 frostbolts off in 1.. There would be freaking uproar. Atleast Blizzard would find a solution to this issue and have it resolved.. Just because EVERYONE makes use of a glitch doesnt mean it gets promoted to "mechanic"..

As I said, I know how to AC. But any UNINTENDED "mechanic" that improves damage above what was intented IS a glitch and should be treated as one.

Except no one is casting 5 separate abilities off in 1 second. They're animation cancelling 1 ability with a light attack or bash. If someone is dying to that before they know they're in a fight I don't know what to tell you.

Ezareth

Xeven wrote: »

@Ezareth @FENGRUSH @LeftyLucy @Gilliamtherogue @Anyone else who supports animation canceling (including myself)...

I use animation canceling extensively and have never had any complaints until recently. The OP did a good job of pointing out my recently discoverd beef with it.

Every "good" stam build is now bash canceling everything to the point where you can't even see what abilities they are using. I'll use reflective scales as an example. As a magsorc when I see wings flap an internal clock starts ticking and I instinctively cast any proced frags as soon as the timer is up. It is extremely potent when timed with a curse, and I don't even have to think about it or look for any other effects.

You can't do that anymore because now you will never actually see a "good" DK flap. You have to watch for the orange aura around the DK to disappear (yes I have adapted to this new playstyle). The problem with this is that the orange aura does not provide any clear feedback about when the ability was used or when it will wear off.

What you end up with is a combat system where all you ever actually see is light attacks and bashes, and I don't think that's what anyone really wants long term. I have not made any firm opinions on how to fix this yet, but as of right now I'm ok with canceling light/heavy attack animations with abilities. I am NOT ok with canceling ability animations with bash/block.

That's why I double reflect. Trying to sneak an ability through a *Good* DKs timer is asking for him to reactively reflect on you. I animation cancel all my shields and my defensive posture with block.

I don't know of any stamina physical attacks that I'm hit with that I don't see due to animation cancelling. Sometimes an extra attack is added in front of it or behind it but either way I'm still going to react the same way I would had they not used any cancelling.

Tdroid

I'm thinking that if they'd speed up some of the animations just a little and removed animation cancelling, that'd be great. Animation cancelling in general strikes me as a needless annoyance. I shouldn't be able to get the full force of something I clearly cancelled. Or be hit with the full force of something that was clearly cancelled.

MrBeatDown

Animation canceling is cheap. I got hit by a single skill over 5 times for almost 30k Damage in less than 2 seconds. You dont have time to react or move out of the range of the attack before your dead. 99% of the time, if you get hit with a macro/animation cancel skill, your dead. Its a cheap 1 button kill that should not exist in the game. When you see the opponent's arm swing 2 times but you get hit 5 times, you know its animation canceling. This should not even be possible in a pvp mmo game. So because of Animation cancelling, you get $#IT like this happening in pvp. Surprise attack, block, surprise attack, block, surprise attack, block, surprise attack, block, surprise attack, block. All this in less than 2 seconds for 30k damage win. Macro'd = L2P noob or go play another game.

They really need to fix animation canceling so macro's will be less of a threat.

Millerman34n

If animation canceling is taken out all skill will be taken out of the game. Everyone will quit!!!!!

ToRelax

MrBeatDown wrote: »

Animation canceling is cheap. I got hit by a single skill over 5 times for almost 30k Damage in less than 2 seconds. You dont have time to react or move out of the range of the attack before your dead. 99% of the time, if you get hit with a macro/animation cancel skill, your dead. Its a cheap 1 button kill that should not exist in the game. When you see the opponent's arm swing 2 times but you get hit 5 times, you know its animation canceling. This should not even be possible in a pvp mmo game. So because of Animation cancelling, you get $#IT like this happening in pvp. Surprise attack, block, surprise attack, block, surprise attack, block, surprise attack, block, surprise attack, block. All this in less than 2 seconds for 30k damage win. Macro'd = L2P noob or go play another game.

They really need to fix animation canceling so macro's will be less of a threat.

This is the exact reason people shouldn't comment if they have no clue about the topic.
Oh well, I guess I'm in the wrong thread.

dday3six

MrBeatDown wrote: »

Animation canceling is cheap. I got hit by a single skill over 5 times for almost 30k Damage in less than 2 seconds. You dont have time to react or move out of the range of the attack before your dead. 99% of the time, if you get hit with a macro/animation cancel skill, your dead. Its a cheap 1 button kill that should not exist in the game. When you see the opponent's arm swing 2 times but you get hit 5 times, you know its animation canceling. This should not even be possible in a pvp mmo game. So because of Animation cancelling, you get $#IT like this happening in pvp. Surprise attack, block, surprise attack, block, surprise attack, block, surprise attack, block, surprise attack, block. All this in less than 2 seconds for 30k damage win. Macro'd = L2P noob or go play another game.

They really need to fix animation canceling so macro's will be less of a threat.

A screen shot doesn't prove marcos were used. It doesn't prove anything really. Cyrodiil lag is so horrendous of late and that's more likely what actually happened.

Lava_Croft

Animation cancelling is not 5 skills in 2 seconds so please take that cowfeces somewhere else. Please

MisterBigglesworth

Animation Cancelling is 3 abilities in 1.5 seconds: Light Attack, Ability, Light Attack.
Because Light/Heavy attacks are on a separate cooldown from abilities.

I'd like to see that distinction removed so LT/HTs are on the same cooldown as spells/abilities. Yes, that would make the combat slightly slower, but I don't care. This is an MMO, not an FPS. If you want a game that rewards insane twitch reflexes then go play an FPS.

dday3six

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

Animation Cancelling is 3 abilities in 1.5 seconds: Light Attack, Ability, Light Attack.
Because Light/Heavy attacks are on a separate cooldown from abilities.

I'd like to see that distinction removed so LT/HTs are on the same cooldown as spells/abilities. Yes, that would make the combat slightly slower, but I don't care. This is an MMO, not an FPS. If you want a game that rewards insane twitch reflexes then go play an FPS.

There is a lot more to it than that. Blocks, Bashes, and weapon swaps are thrown in as well. Then ESO is MMO-lite with action combat. MMOs tend not to withhold numerical combat info in the name of immersion.

Twitch gameplay is still going to be important even if animation canceling were removed. The snap of reacting first is what twitch is. In shooters it's summed up as if two opponents round the same corner, the one who fires first usually wins. In ESO PVP the person who reacts fastest will still be rewarded even with combat showed down. Reaction time frankly has been a large and integral part of gaming skill since the beginning.

Eletheia

Here is the obvious question, then...why do you have 'cast times' built into the ability if 'the skilled' are able to cancel them? Why not make it fair for everyone and remove the cast time from all abilities for all people? Was it so that the opposing player had a chance to respond? Because the amount of animation cancellation that we have come up against in pvp basically leaves you dead in the water, unable to fight back. Mash the buttons all you want, once you are in the throes of a group animation cancellation, you are lambs to slaughter in the blink of an eye. I guess if you are the person who is not on the receiving end, you must think it is wonderful, but to me that is not a skilled fight, that is just a very good button masher.

Kova

I've said it before:


If you take out animation cancelling, you take out reactive play. What you think will happen is that you will see animations and you will be able to react. What will actually happen is that you will see the animation and be able to do nothing about it because your animation/cooldown (which will have to be added to "fix" animation cancelling) aren't over yet, so you are forced to watch your inevitable death.

I know it's frustrating to hear, but if you find animation cancelling to be an issue, you're probably not losing because of it. In my experience, you're losing because the other player is better. It hurts, I get that, but it's probably true. I met a player that said things like "animations are there for a reason." And you just couldn't argue with him. So I dueled him without cancelling a single thing, and he lost. Only this time, it was because my class is OP, so he got HIS op class. Killed him again, only now it was BECAUSE OF LAG.

This will play out just like shieldbreaker and the dk nerf before it. You'll get what you want, still get beat, and find something else to blame it on.

D0ntevenL1ft

Why was this thread brought up from months ago?

Islyn

eliisra wrote: »

Gilliamtherogue wrote: »

If you want skill, learn animation canceling beyond what most people know about. There's so much more to this game's combat system other than clipping animations, there are special rules that are in place that dictate the flow of combat, but there are many ways to alter the flow with special tricks you can learn and master.

Ok than maestro. Please teach my templar how to effectively animation cancel Puncturing Sweep, Radiant Oppression or the travelling time of Blazing Spear lol. You can also teach me how to animation cancel Flurry please.

This while my NB can clip 90% of her offensive skills. Classes, weapons and skills where never balanced with animation cancelling in mind(as well as latency), that's the big issue here. ZoS already stated countless of times that never indented, but they're going with it anyway.

Cones, channelling, ground target and casting timed skills cant clipped at all or only clipped very little. While instant skills or shorter casting timed, can be cancelled extremely well.

Either ZoS goes and re-tweaks every single skills out there and measure it's effectiveness with clipping in mind, or they should remove it altogether. You cant have it both ways.

Actually I ani cancel sweeps all the time after cast with dw. You do it like skill, cancel with dw light attack.

Radiant oppression: block cancel.

Blazing spear you go straight into alternate attack be it sweeps/jabs or crushing shock/force pulse light weaves.

KallistaBlackheart

dear ZOS. please leave animation cancelling in. perhaps clean up the animation transitions so it feels more like a natural strike, but leave the need for key skill in.

mdylan2013

I've said it before, if Zenimax are going to allow animation cancelling then they should just remove all animations as they're obviously not a requirement.

I personally think it should be an exploit to avoid an intended animation in order to gain an advantage over another player in PVP. Animation cancelling maybe a 'skill' but it's a skill which gives you an unfair advantage over other players.

VincentBlanquin

i can somehow understand that many players and devs are against "removing" of animation cancelling, but if it should stay, game should be balanced around it (obviously is not now). how far you are at balancing that zos?

KramUzibra

Ezareth wrote: »

Hiero_Glyph wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

Maim wrote: »

Debate this all you want. When I notice that mashing buttons, coupled with mild latency and a 2H weapon equates to me 'weaving' *coughwhatabullspitwaytojustifybrokenmechanicscough* a heavy attack and wrecking blow spam in less time than it should take to do both I'm bothered by this. O wait. Been using this now as those big clunky TWO HANDED (read as SLOW, HEAVY, DIFFICULT TO WEILD) weapons slice through the air faster than a set of daggers???? Animation cancel a Steel Tornado (with that room clearing reach?????) with block. Cast faster, do more damage on a high area execution aoe....

I'm sorry. Leave animation cancelling alone like all those people who depend on it for their DPS numbers want you to. Leave it alone, but for the sake of hoping that something that occurs in this game MAKES ANY SENSE AT ALL for all that you do, REMOVE THE DAMAGE THAT OCCURS WHEN YOU CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL a skill in exchange for something relevant to the course of your combat.

Gonna animation cancel payment of subscription. It won't actually charge my credit card, but I'll still get ESOPlus membership status. Sound about right?

Total falsehoods. You can't cast anything faster by animation cancelling it. Block casting Steel tornato allows you to cast it at exactly the same speed as spamming it normally except you are then blocking (and no longer regenning Stam) while you use it.

The fact that 4 people agree with you and think this is a thing shows just the kind of people we're dealing with here.

Hiero_Glyph wrote: »

@jrkhan

No instant ability is actually instant in the sense that it deals damage the moment you press the button. All instant abilities have an animation that begins to play the instant you press the button. The only way for an instant ability to deal damage at that exact moment is if you animation cancel. This was a huge problem for Dawnbreaker as it applied not only the initial damage but the full DoT all at once when it was animation canceled. This is just one example of how poorly animation canceling is programmed by ZOS. Even when you weave light attacks you will hear the sound of the attack while performing another action. The game simply does not know what to do when you animation cancel as it tries to apply multiple effects simultaneously, which is why it is so broken.

As for latency, this causes all the inputs to be delayed. you can still animation cancel but your response time will be delayed so if you light attack, skill, bash then it will take slightly longer for all of these inputs to occur. This is no different then my shooting at ghosts example that occurs in many shooters. The point being that as all of the inputs are delayed the player with high latency will be weaving slower even if they input the commands just as fast as a low latency player.

Regarding fps drops, these can actually cause inputs to be missed by the game. So if you gap close, light attack, skill and that skill has a conditional range then the game cannot perform that action unless it properly performs the previous actions. This is also why spamming just one skill is far more consistent even during fps drops. Likewise, weapon swapping can be delayed and inputs lost since certain conditions are no longer met. Just the other night I was weapon swap canceling and the next thing I knew I was on the wrong bar casting the wrong skills since the game dropped my weapon swap input. This can also happen with CCs as you may be affected after you have input commands and are just waiting for the game to catch-up but the CC invalidates those inputs.

Simply not true. The game has networking logic built in to account for latency. All good multiplayer games have had this in the past decade of gaming. Your actions responses will still be received by the server exactly as a player who has a sub 100 ping would be received...the only difference is the communication back to your client. I animation cancel with 300+ ping all the time, (my internet is garbage many times) and other than the obvious latency issues caused by my connection I don't have any issues chaining various commands together.

By the very definition of the term latency there is no way your response time is the same if your connection is slower. I never stated anywhere that this delay is significant but noted how when chaining multiple actions there will be slight delays throughout as it takes longer for the server to recognize and register the input. Again, anyone who has played a competitive shooter undertands how this works as even with things like networking logic, unless all players are in the same room, some of them will get updates faster than others. The famous example is that you shoot first but still die, only to see in the killcam that you never even fired a shot. No amount of logic will offset latency unless you are delaying every player to the slowest connection rate, which is not what happens. For most players this difference is imperceptible, but it is still present and can become noticeable if other factors compound it. How often have you tried to Bolt Escape only to have the game take a full second before registering the command? This issue is not exclusive to fps drops either but is far more pronounced when they do occur.

EDIT: Also, your ping is just an average and does not mean that your connection never spikes. As a result, some connections may spike more frequently than others and the result is a perceptible delay despite otherwise being stable with a ~300 ping.

This would be true if all the player abilities that you "Animation Cancel" with were dependent upon server responses. Every one except weapon swap (Which almost no one uses)...light attack, heavy attack, block, dodge roll , Bash all are 100% client based and not impacted by latency.

I use weapon swap, it's quite easy and effective with the xbox one elite controller. My sister also uses weapon swap.

KramUzibra

Ezareth wrote: »

laced wrote: »

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

usmcjdking wrote: »

OdinForge wrote: »

Jowrik wrote: »

OdinForge wrote: »

There isn't anything wrong with animation canceling as it stands, it's an extra layer of responsiveness that many people enjoy.

Taking it away would slow down combat way too much.

Essentially you could speed up the animations, and still achieve the same thing as animation skipping allows today. The benefit would be that you would also get full complete good looking animations, instead of the invisible/spasm/half-finished fidgeting hits we have today.

No that's not how it works.

Animation canceling is a layer of "skill", as in it's something one should practice to get better at to do more consistently. The game can be viewed as a mindless button smash, but removing canceling and speeding up animations would worsen this. It separates one person from another, allows for variations in build numbers that otherwise wouldn't exist if everyone consistently hit at the same speed.

In the case of ESO, animation canceling is good.

lol wtf. Layer of skill? Animation cancelling is the exact definition of button mashing. Mash buttons with no respect to your enemy.

Animation cancelling, for the sake of this thread can be fixed. Damage simply needs to be tied to the ending animation frames instead of halfway through.

Out of all the unnecessary "solutions" to this imaginary problem, yours is the worst I've ever seen. People would waste time on cancelled attacks frequently... it would be incredibly frustrating. Then, in order to compensate, players would slow their attacks WAY down, so slow that they were wasting a second or more in between attacks, just to make sure they didn't miss one. And THEN you know what would happen?

Everyone and their mother would start using MACROS in order to time their attacks perfectly so that they don't waste time or cancel attacks by mistake. Your "solution" would cause more cheating than ESO has seen yet.

Because people aren't using macros now?

Only the bad players if anyone.

a.skelton92 wrote: »

People have just got too used to being able to take advantage of this unintended floor in the combat system and try justifying its use by claiming it "adds something" or "takes skill" to use. It takes more skill to steadily kill someone whilst using the appropriate interrupts/ cc's on time etc than it does killing someone before they even know they are in a fight. Thats just obvious.

Imagine if other games like WoW for example had a similar glitch.. Mages were able to fire 5 frostbolts off in 1.. There would be freaking uproar. Atleast Blizzard would find a solution to this issue and have it resolved.. Just because EVERYONE makes use of a glitch doesnt mean it gets promoted to "mechanic"..

As I said, I know how to AC. But any UNINTENDED "mechanic" that improves damage above what was intented IS a glitch and should be treated as one.

Except no one is casting 5 separate abilities off in 1 second. They're animation cancelling 1 ability with a light attack or bash. If someone is dying to that before they know they're in a fight I don't know what to tell you.

Actually I AC everything. Ill light attack claws and bash then pierc weapon swap buff light attack buff bash light attack weapon swap then repeat. It's quite effective. I'm glad zos is leaving AC alone.

D0ntevenL1ft

Can you imagine how boring pvp would be if you and a similar build faced off against each other with no AC? It would be like going punch for punch over a span of multiple hours with nothing happening. Keep AC because it allows a level of skill rather than one button smashing. Also you are NOT getting hit with 5 attacks in 1 second... that is NOT animation cancelling so is irrelevant and cannot be used to support the argument that AC needs to be removed.

mdylan2013

D0ntevenL1ft wrote: »

Can you imagine how boring pvp would be if you and a similar build faced off against each other with no AC? It would be like going punch for punch over a span of multiple hours with nothing happening. Keep AC because it allows a level of skill rather than one button smashing. Also you are NOT getting hit with 5 attacks in 1 second... that is NOT animation cancelling so is irrelevant and cannot be used to support the argument that AC needs to be removed.

But you are deliberately cancelling the animation of an attack which makes the attacks hit earlier than the developers intended.

VincentBlanquin

D0ntevenL1ft wrote: »

Can you imagine how boring pvp would be if you and a similar build faced off against each other with no AC? It would be like going punch for punch over a span of multiple hours with nothing happening. Keep AC because it allows a level of skill rather than one button smashing. Also you are NOT getting hit with 5 attacks in 1 second... that is NOT animation cancelling so is irrelevant and cannot be used to support the argument that AC needs to be removed.

the opposite is truth. animation canceling turn into muscle memory button smashing. no place for tactics there

ToRelax

VincentBlanquin wrote: »

D0ntevenL1ft wrote: »

Can you imagine how boring pvp would be if you and a similar build faced off against each other with no AC? It would be like going punch for punch over a span of multiple hours with nothing happening. Keep AC because it allows a level of skill rather than one button smashing. Also you are NOT getting hit with 5 attacks in 1 second... that is NOT animation cancelling so is irrelevant and cannot be used to support the argument that AC needs to be removed.

the opposite is truth. animation canceling turn into muscle memory button smashing. no place for tactics there

Nah, AC is making fights not only faster, it also allows to make good use of things like roll dodging, weapon swapping and bashing, that would be pretty pointless if they ran on the same GCD as regular skills.

DaveMoeDee

OdinForge wrote: »

There isn't anything wrong with animation canceling as it stands, it's an extra layer of responsiveness that many people enjoy.

Taking it away would slow down combat way too much.

Then get rid of animations if people want faster combat.

DaveMoeDee

usmcjdking wrote: »

OdinForge wrote: »

Jowrik wrote: »

OdinForge wrote: »

There isn't anything wrong with animation canceling as it stands, it's an extra layer of responsiveness that many people enjoy.

Taking it away would slow down combat way too much.

Essentially you could speed up the animations, and still achieve the same thing as animation skipping allows today. The benefit would be that you would also get full complete good looking animations, instead of the invisible/spasm/half-finished fidgeting hits we have today.

No that's not how it works.

Animation canceling is a layer of "skill", as in it's something one should practice to get better at to do more consistently. The game can be viewed as a mindless button smash, but removing canceling and speeding up animations would worsen this. It separates one person from another, allows for variations in build numbers that otherwise wouldn't exist if everyone consistently hit at the same speed.

In the case of ESO, animation canceling is good.

lol wtf. Layer of skill? Animation cancelling is the exact definition of button mashing. Mash buttons with no respect to your enemy.

Animation cancelling, for the sake of this thread can be fixed. Damage simply needs to be tied to the ending animation frames instead of halfway through.

It isn't button mashing any more than going through a rotation of skills is button mashing.

RoamingRiverElk

Combat would feel horrible, slow and clunky without animation cancelling. That'd be the last straw...