what's up with this animation cancelling?

Weng

So, in pvp I could observe the following:

An enemy sorc just standing there with his staff glaring at me, looked almost like one of the friendly mage guards at the resources.
Damage comes in all at once and I am dead.
Combat log tells me:

Crystal Frags
light attack
mage's wrath
light attack

Very strange I thought, why didn't I see any animations, not even a projectile?

Since I play a stamina sorc, I decided to try the parallel thing with 2h on some enemies

Wrecking Blow
light or heavy attack
Executioner
light attack

I could see the beginning animation of wrecking blow, suddenly skipping to executioner and then all 4 hits at once in the combat log. I killed quite a few guys with this combo.

But I think they couldn't make sense of the animation clipping garbage or maybe they didn't see anything like me with the magicka sorc.

FriedEggSandwich

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/237015/what-animation-cancelling-is-detailed-explanation/p1

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO

You wont see the animations.. hence animation canceling. All the attacks get rolled into one animation. Considering this game relies heavily on animations as visual queues for dodges / blocks, etc... its a pretty horrible flaw. Personally I would rather it gone as it does more harm then good but that isn't going to happen.

Weng

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/237015/what-animation-cancelling-is-detailed-explanation/p1

I know how animation cancelling works.

But if it clips the animations at 30 fps and 100 ping so you can't make out which skills are used, then it is surely a reason to complain about. Might not be a big problem for pve though, the server knows everything and the npc don't need telegraphs at all.

DHale

It's lag.... latency not animation cancelling. The likely culprit is your computer most ppl know that running this game on a regular PC is not going to cut it. Second if you can't get a new computer you need to use instant cast abilities that work in lag. Third is the game has lag espically in populated campaigns. You cannot really fix that other than going to low pop or med pop campaigns. Turn off all non estimated add on if on PC and don't have a bunch of programs open including the launcher. Also lefty Lucy, parfax, and Alcast have really good animation cancelling guides. Those are on you tube.

FriedEggSandwich

w3ng_vgeb17_ESO wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/237015/what-animation-cancelling-is-detailed-explanation/p1

I know how animation cancelling works.

But if it clips the animations at 30 fps and 100 ping so you can't make out which skills are used, then it is surely a reason to complain about. Might not be a big problem for pve though, the server knows everything and the npc don't need telegraphs at all.

I linked the thread not to educate you but to draw your attention to a discussion on the subject that recently took place. Read the thread to anticipate the kind of responses you might get here.

Solariken

w3ng_vgeb17_ESO wrote: »

I use animation cancelling because I have to if I want to be competitive. I hate it though. The only things that should cancel animations (sometimes) are block and dodge-roll for survival reasons. NOT other DPS abilities. It's part of the reason why damage is so out of control in PvP.

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO

and yet bar switching has the lowest priority. I really don't get it. The most fundamental thing about eso combat, bar switching... and the animations cancel the bar switch. So many times i'll switch weapons and press an ability only for it to automatically switch back to the previous bar and trigger an ability I don't want pressed. So much sigh.

SirAndy

Since this was completely unintentional and ZOS apparently has no clue how to fix it, they simply elevated it from "bug" to "feature" and called it a day.

I'm pretty sure it will never be fixed ...

Waffennacht

To fix it would mean all abilities would prevent you from blocking or dodging, not a pretty sight.

In a game with "no cool downs" seems has it should be

ToRelax

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO wrote: »

and yet bar switching has the lowest priority. I really don't get it. The most fundamental thing about eso combat, bar switching... and the animations cancel the bar switch. So many times i'll switch weapons and press an ability only for it to automatically switch back to the previous bar and trigger an ability I don't want pressed. So much sigh.

Wrong. Priority of swap weapon is higher than normal skills and lower than dodge roll.

Forestd16b14_ESO

It's a broken mechanic that needs fixxed but to do so ZOS have to redo the entire combat system and there not gonna do that cause reasons. Your reasons being your own so no one can get in trouble.

karakondzula

I would rather have short cooldowns over animation canceling. Its really rubbish, but you have to use it because it maximize your burst damage. Some people actually think they are skilled if they can do animation cancel, which is basically just button mashing, while real skill comes with timing and reasonable use of your abilities, stuns, dodges, blocks and so on... Same people are the main reason why it was never looked at, and its not considered as broken mechanic. Most of them are just under impression of streamers who lay waste on hundreds of newbies and causals.

Anyway i doubt they will ever fix it, so embrace it or walk away.

Waffennacht

Again, "button mashing" is hitting random buttons with no coordination or specific intent, animation cancelling by definition is not, "button mashing"

Barlthump

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO wrote: »

You wont see the animations.. hence animation canceling. All the attacks get rolled into one animation. Considering this game relies heavily on animations as visual queues for dodges / blocks, etc... its a pretty horrible flaw. Personally I would rather it gone as it does more harm then good but that isn't going to happen.

It take 0.5 secs to cast hardened ward. But around 2 secs to cast wrecking blow. Remove animation canceling and anyone using a 2 hander is weak. I see someone using a WB imma just use a ward and wave. Then when he tries again, imma ward and wave again. Until he feels so useless he hangs himself cause I won't kill him. Imma just ward and wave everytime he uses wrecking blow. Plus without animation canceling, I won't even bother avoiding WB. By the time he charges one more I can break free and ward again. Just to wave at him. Damn I think I can make people quit just by waving at them on a 1v1. One again a sorc wanting to be OP.

Van_0S

Why can't zenimax provide a proper tutorial guide for animation cancelling rather than watching in YouTube?

karakondzula

Waffennacht wrote: »

Again, "button mashing" is hitting random buttons with no coordination or specific intent, animation cancelling by definition is not, "button mashing"

Animation canceling happens to some degree no matter if you use it with intention or just pressing random buttons. I did it first day i bought my copy of the game without any intention or coordination. Only way not to use it is to wait for animations to finish with your hands in the air. So in its basics its button mashing. Coordination just brings purpose.

Van_0S

karakondzula wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

Again, "button mashing" is hitting random buttons with no coordination or specific intent, animation cancelling by definition is not, "button mashing"

Animation canceling happens to some degree no matter if you use it with intention or just pressing random buttons. I did it first day i bought my copy of the game without any intention or coordination. Only way not to use it is to wait for animations to finish with your hands in the air. So in its basics its button mashing. Coordination just brings purpose.

Yep! If zeni could just put a 5 sec cool down timer to each ability.

Didgerion

w3ng_vgeb17_ESO wrote: »

So, in pvp I could observe the following:

An enemy sorc just standing there with his staff glaring at me, looked almost like one of the friendly mage guards at the resources.
Damage comes in all at once and I am dead.
Combat log tells me:

Crystal Frags
light attack
mage's wrath
light attack

Very strange I thought, why didn't I see any animations, not even a projectile?

Since I play a stamina sorc, I decided to try the parallel thing with 2h on some enemies

Wrecking Blow
light or heavy attack
Executioner
light attack

I could see the beginning animation of wrecking blow, suddenly skipping to executioner and then all 4 hits at once in the combat log. I killed quite a few guys with this combo.

But I think they couldn't make sense of the animation clipping garbage or maybe they didn't see anything like me with the magicka sorc.

As mentioned earlier it is was the lag you've experienced.
Animation canceling is about placing light and heavy attacks between abilities. The most skillful animation cancelers can place light attack + ability + a bash in one second. There is no such animation cancellation as placing 2 abilities in a second.

Malmai

Cyrodiil 500-999 ms, because hamster servers and 10$ coding.

willymchilybily

Am i the only one thinking...."he's doing it wrong! dammit, why is no one picking up on this?"

my understanding is light attacks don't cancel the animation of skills (AFAIK), skills cancel light attack animations you're just wasting a perfectly good empowered buff on a light attack, would be better just heavy/medium weaving during/after the WB

Alcast

YurtTheSilentChief wrote: »

Why can't zenimax provide a proper tutorial guide for animation cancelling rather than watching in YouTube?

Because they would release it also on youtube
And:
It would be probably worse then the ones created from the players

Now you might ask why?
Because they have no *** clue wtf is going on in their own game.

Now you think I am full of shizzle, well check out this:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/213734/the-bug-notes-compendium-of-current-bugs-exploits-maintained-daily/p1
The list is getting BIGGER and BIGGER. Some bugs in there for over a *** YEAR
Players have to send ZOS a VIDEO for every mofo bug because they can NOT figure it out on their own after we explained it to them.

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO

ToRelax wrote: »

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO wrote: »

and yet bar switching has the lowest priority. I really don't get it. The most fundamental thing about eso combat, bar switching... and the animations cancel the bar switch. So many times i'll switch weapons and press an ability only for it to automatically switch back to the previous bar and trigger an ability I don't want pressed. So much sigh.

Wrong. Priority of swap weapon is higher than normal skills and lower than dodge roll.

Then explain why it occurs. There are only 2 possible ways the above can occur.

a) The game is registering multiple bar swaps and due to the stupid ability queue system is switching back. This is unlikely. I can easily make a video showing it occuring. It happens everytime I rapdily press an ability and then bar swap. I am pressing both the ability and the bar swap button once,

b) The animation must complete for the bar swap to switch properly. The only exception would be channeled or lengthy casted abilities. This is the most likely culprit.

Weng

avid_mdb16_ESO wrote: »

As mentioned earlier it is was the lag you've experienced.
Animation canceling is about placing light and heavy attacks between abilities. The most skillful animation cancelers can place light attack + ability + a bash in one second. There is no such animation cancellation as placing 2 abilities in a second.

I've just tested this in a pve scenario with 55 fps and ping 70 and Recount addon.
After about 1 sec (windup of WB) the Wrecking Blow, light attack, Executioner damage come within about 700 ms. The light attack after the Executioner was delayed 1 s though.
But the burst damage itself occurs in a time frame of under 1 sec. The overall dps is spread over 2 to 3 s. The first matters in pvp, the latter is more important in pve.

Actually, the animations were visible in this setup, i.e. with no players around and basically 1 NPC.

So you might be right that the animation clipping occurs during animation cancelling under lag. Which is very bad nevertheless.

Tomato

ZOS has admitted they do not know how to fix it

Jumper45

Its quite simple. You need visual ques to understand whats going on, without it there is a flaw. Really no other way to put it or around it. Regardless if you use it or not. In every situation its an unfair advantage even in the case of canceling vs canceling. Its a no win situation when canceling is involved. They don't know how to fix it so for now we'll have to deal with it. That being said you cant really defend using it which a lot of people like to do. You can only be honest with yourself and say yeah i'm abusing it. But its because i can. Which is fine because no one is doing anything about it.

ToRelax

avid_mdb16_ESO wrote: »

w3ng_vgeb17_ESO wrote: »

So, in pvp I could observe the following:

An enemy sorc just standing there with his staff glaring at me, looked almost like one of the friendly mage guards at the resources.
Damage comes in all at once and I am dead.
Combat log tells me:

Crystal Frags
light attack
mage's wrath
light attack

Very strange I thought, why didn't I see any animations, not even a projectile?

Since I play a stamina sorc, I decided to try the parallel thing with 2h on some enemies

Wrecking Blow
light or heavy attack
Executioner
light attack

I could see the beginning animation of wrecking blow, suddenly skipping to executioner and then all 4 hits at once in the combat log. I killed quite a few guys with this combo.

But I think they couldn't make sense of the animation clipping garbage or maybe they didn't see anything like me with the magicka sorc.

As mentioned earlier it is was the lag you've experienced.
Animation canceling is about placing light and heavy attacks between abilities. The most skillful animation cancelers can place light attack + ability + a bash in one second. There is no such animation cancellation as placing 2 abilities in a second.

Nope, that's not everything by far. normal attacks, abilities, weapon swap, block/bash and dodge roll all have different global cooldowns. Not using weapon swap and dodge roll to cancel skills can slow you down a lot.

Wrecking Blow in particular is a channel, same with Crystal Fragments, so with the last light attack delayed by one second respectively, what @w3ng_vgeb17_ESO wrote he experienced is very likeley and not uncommon at all. The Executioner/Mage's Wrath was legitimately casted more than one global cooldown after the Wreckin Blow/Crystal Fragments animation started.

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO wrote: »

and yet bar switching has the lowest priority. I really don't get it. The most fundamental thing about eso combat, bar switching... and the animations cancel the bar switch. So many times i'll switch weapons and press an ability only for it to automatically switch back to the previous bar and trigger an ability I don't want pressed. So much sigh.

Wrong. Priority of swap weapon is higher than normal skills and lower than dodge roll.

Then explain why it occurs. There are only 2 possible ways the above can occur.

a) The game is registering multiple bar swaps and due to the stupid ability queue system is switching back. This is unlikely. I can easily make a video showing it occuring. It happens everytime I rapdily press an ability and then bar swap. I am pressing both the ability and the bar swap button once,

b) The animation must complete for the bar swap to switch properly. The only exception would be channeled or lengthy casted abilities. This is the most likely culprit.

It's hard to say without knowing exactly what you tried and how. I can tell you it is common practice to cancel skills with a weapon swap, also to skill -> weapon swap; skill -> weapon swap , so you only lose a minimum amount of time for using skills on your other bar. Remember that animation cancelling works different from skill to skill, so it may happen that you swap weapon before the skill you wanted to use actually took effect.

Morbash

Jumper45 wrote: »

Its quite simple. You need visual ques to understand whats going on, without it there is a flaw. Really no other way to put it or around it. Regardless if you use it or not. In every situation its an unfair advantage even in the case of canceling vs canceling. Its a no win situation when canceling is involved. They don't know how to fix it so for now we'll have to deal with it. That being said you cant really defend using it which a lot of people like to do. You can only be honest with yourself and say yeah i'm abusing it. But its because i can. Which is fine because no one is doing anything about it.

My name is DeusAres, and I abuse ZOS approved features. My animation cancelling addiction started when my peers pressured me to "L2P."

leepalmer95

I still think animation cancelling is the only thing in this game which requires skill, it gives people who are good at it and actually take the time to learn it.

Combat would feel so slow and sluggish without it.

Besides if people want to spam the same skill over and over and not animation cancel thats their choice, their losing out on dps, time and ult.

Autolycus

leepalmer95 wrote: »

I still think animation cancelling is the only thing in this game which requires skill, it gives people who are good at it and actually take the time to learn it.

Combat would feel so slow and sluggish without it.

Besides if people want to spam the same skill over and over and not animation cancel thats their choice, their losing out on dps, time and ult.

While I agree that animation cancelling requires skill, I do not agree that it's the only thing that does. It's likely that player skill is more removed for those that copy their builds from a blog post or a video.

There are a lot of things we do that are second nature to us now, that at one point was considered a skill that needed mastering. Even something as small as knowing when to use skill A versus skill B in a particular scenario is rolled into player skill, like moving out of a red circle. Sure, it sounds easy. In practice, there are a variety of mechanics that require experience and skill.

Anyone who has stepped foot into vMA, organized duels in Cyrodiil, or who has tried unique, challenging methods to complete old content (like 100% burn mechanic on the Mantikora) knows that there's more to ESO than animation cancelling.

Valen_Byte

This one has been beat to death.

Zo$ official response is that animation cancelling is.....'working as intended'

Nothing to see here...move along.