Official Feedback Thread for Prioritization of Combat Animations

CtrlAltDlt

Dumb change imo. Should've left it how it was, the people complaining about AC need to learn to play.

bhlegit

i think most people will leave to black desert LOL

bhlegit

its a great shame

bhlegit

nemisan wrote: »

Just kill AC off once and for all and many more ppl will start playing eso:fact

LOL are you joking? troll post, right?

Xeven

Alcast wrote: »

Changes to Dawnbreaker, as an Example
What I do not get is, Blockcancel got changed, but Weap Swap/ROll Cancel still works as before. Why?
https://youtu.be/Xf5NbVnOG1Y

Because weapon swap and roll has to take priority over everything for obvious reasons. Block and bash are lower priority for obvious reasons.

I know that this change is unpopular, but I am for it. Previously you were able to completely hide the animations for Reflective Scales, Defensive Stance, all Wards, and much more. This provided zero feedback to your opponent as to what you were actually casting, which was a terrible thing for real time reaction based combat.

bhlegit

Xeven wrote: »

Previously you were able to completely hide the animations for Reflective Scales, Defensive Stance, all Wards, and much more. This provided zero feedback to your opponent as to what you were actually casting, which was a terrible thing for real time reaction based combat.

No that is wrong you cannot completely hide it you still see the start of the animation, you just have to know what to look for. you are spreading misinformation. For example if i cancel my ward really fast, instead of clapping my hands - my hands move a bit and the purple bubble appears from our hands. if in combat you can still see that, its not invisible. or with scales if you animation cancel it really fast the wings appear for a split second but do not flap and sort of go backwards a bit and then disappear. they are NOT totally invisible - you can still use it as visual combat cue

beerninja

fred.thomsonb16_ESO wrote: »

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nemisan wrote: »

Just kill AC off once and for all and many more ppl will start playing eso:fact

And a large chunk of the end game content will be unplayable for existing players.

I kept dying in maelstrom due to not having enough stamina to dodge roll break an animation and not being able to block cancel; weapon swap cancelling, at the moment is a centric part of my build, which is ridiculous.

I agree if they killed it off completely (which we all know they'll never do) then the end game content would absolutely require a decrease on the health of the mobs since dps would be lower. As a bonus though it would make the game look a lot more professional and make it easier to balance classes.

Lokov

Absolutely awful change. If u want to fix it then fix it to all, not just for magicka builds that use staffs. It is still possible to cancel animation without any problems when i played as stamina NB with dual wield and one hand + shield. But as NB or DK in magicka build with staff weapon its terrible and ugly. Check all aspects please, check all aspects, and not just what to you seem.

silky_soft

This has made it easier to spam channel and long animation skills back to back. All the bads who can't animation cancel in New system are just standing in mines or spamming wb.

spoqster

I think I might be one of the few people who likes the change so far.

Disclaimer: I have just gotten back to ESO after a few months of hiatus, and I haven't completely mastered animation canceling on live in all it's variants (LA, MA, Block, WS, etc.).

I tried LA/Executioner for a few hours on PTS and I really liked it. What I liked about it, is that you got more of a visual cue if you pulled it off properly than before. Currently on live the auditive clue is more clear, and you can watch your addons for the numbers, but the animations themselves don't really reveal it. On PTS canceling the LA with Execution lead to an accelerated animation of Executioner.

So this is feedback.

Now my opinion: I am neutral towards animation canceling (although I think the power variance in ESO should be much smaller), but I do believe that a good game design involves visual feedback for ANYTHING the player can accomplish. So if animation canceling is a recognized element of eso skill, then there should be clear visual feedback for pulling off the right timing.

If that was your intention with the changes: Great! If not: hmmh.

Ffastyl

Previously I have only animation canceled Dawnbreaker because of its long animation but upon trying other ultimates on Live, there is a potential in animation canceling to make certain ultimates invisible. Incapacitating Strike is one such ultimate that when canceled has no cues its been activated aside from a sound. Soul Tether can be canceled to the same degree however it still leaves a night rune and creates tethers, at least indicating which ultimate has been used.

Block canceling can increase DPS with ultimates but has the potential to remove all cues of said ultimate.

I would not mind the DPS loss of being unable to animation cancel ultimates so long as outliers such as Dawnbreaker are sped up. I prefer having the cues.

Islyn

Can anyone say whether normal light attack/skill weaves (Staff) still work as on Live or do I need to log onto PTS and check?

Ffastyl

@Islyn Attack weaving has the same timing and effect as Live however your Light Attack animation will play out, cutting out some of the ability animation. This has thrown off many who use visual cues over intuited timing or audio cues.

bhlegit

Islyn wrote: »

Can anyone say whether normal light attack/skill weaves (Staff) still work as on Live or do I need to log onto PTS and check?

it does NOT work the same with a staff light attack weaving

bhlegit

pointless change zos please change it back </3

Islyn

Ffastyl wrote: »

@Islyn Attack weaving has the same timing and effect as Live however your Light Attack animation will play out, cutting out some of the ability animation. This has thrown off many who use visual cues over intuited timing or audio cues.

Oh ok cool xD Thanks!

I started off going by where my char elbow is anyway xD (I am so used to it now, it's just natural, like driving manual transmission)

karakondzula

Looks much better than on live, some abilities are kinda weird to use but for me personally its a good change.

People just have get used to it, mechanics are the same.

MarrazzMist

spoqster wrote: »

a good game design involves visual feedback for ANYTHING the player can accomplish. So if animation canceling is a recognized element of eso skill, then there should be clear visual feedback for pulling off the right timing.

If that was your intention with the changes: Great! If not: hmmh.

Complitely agree. I think this is uncompromisable in game design, and propably the reason for change. At the same time I hope fluid and responsive combat remains, and for builds that rely on block- and bash cancel, there will be way around it.

Mulcibur

I have no problem if they decide that this is the way they want to go and they remove animation canceling completely. But don't remove it in such a way where it affects one class type more than another or where one can still actually perform canceling but in a different way. Then the whole change is pointless.

Either one way or the other. None of this half-arsed kinda taking it away but kinda not nonsense.

KenaPKK

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler @Wrobel

Wrecking Blow is still bugged. On live, you can hit through block, skip the animation entirely, hit with WB and a heavy attack simultaneously, and shorten the animations of consecutive WBs down to .4s. This has been reproduced countless times in tests between me and a friend.

On PTS, it appears that you can still skip the WB 1s animation, and it appears to still be striking through block. One person mentioned in my other thread that if you left click twice while the WB animation is going, you'll skip the animation and still strike the target.

Please look at this very buggy skill... "WB spam" complaints did not become a thing because the ability is actually OP. They became a thing because the ability is buggy as hell, has a 15m range, and can hit behind the use and below terrain in some cases...

eventide03b14a_ESO

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

In the Thieves Guild update, we wanted to make it more clear which attacks players are using, while preserving the responsiveness and feel of the combat system. So, we started with a simple premise: if an ability is successful, you should be able to see it impact (or launch, in the case of projectiles). Now, every successful attack will display until the moment of impact/launch. Instead of canceling the impact/launch of the first ability, we now obscure the first few milliseconds of the interrupting ability.



The above examples show a Heavy Attack interrupted with an instant ability. The green part is what you see, and the red part is what is not shown. In the first example, you can see the way it is currently on the Live megaservers and has been since launch. The Heavy Attack can be interrupted at almost any time during the wind-up. At the time it is interrupted, the strike happens, but it is invisible because it is obscured by the beginning of the interrupting ability. The second example shows our current method of handling interruptions. Instead of obscuring the strike/launch, we show it up until that point of impact/firing, opting to instead obscure the (less important) first few frames of the interrupting ability.

We believe this visual adjustment meets the criteria we set when we were designing this improvement:

• A successfully-fired ability should not be visually obscured; if an attack lands or an ability is launched, we should show it happening
• DPS and other playstyles should not be adversely affected
• The game’s “feel” should not change

One side effect of this change is that there are shorter (or in some cases, no) blend times to smooth the transitions depending on exactly when you choose to fire an interrupting ability. When you’re dealing in milliseconds and giving players that kind of freedom , you sometimes have to forego perfectly smooth transitions in order to make sure the player is receiving proper feedback and telegraphing to other players exactly what they are choosing to do. Having said that, if you find particularly egregious combinations (ability X interrupted with ability Y), please let us know; there may be some things we can do to help smooth them out.

As always, we welcome your feedback. In fact, it will be instrumental in informing us how to proceed with this improvement. Our internal testing has proven to be very successful, but there are so many different playstyles, builds and rotations, we want to make sure we try to implement this in a way that feels good in all cases and doesn’t need to be taught through a tutorial; exactly what you see is what is happening.

This is literally the best answer you have ever given us explaining game mechanics/changes. More like this please!

eventide03b14a_ESO

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

OK, after extensive testing of medium attack weaving with both instant damage spells and spells with cast times, here are my initial findings:

1) Weapon attacks (e.g. Heavy attacks) DO have a higher animation priority, which is not a surprise because of what the OP told us.

2) As far as I can tell, successful projectile attacks are always shown flying through the air, even if the animation for the spell cast was overridden by the animation for the heavy attack.

3) The timing of instant damage spells woven with medium attacks has not changed adversely at all. It seems like it might even be better.

4) HOWEVER... the timing of hard cast spells (e.g. unprocced Crystal Fragments) HAS been affected. If you were accustomed to holding down the attack button (prime your medium attack) immediately after activating a cast spell, you will find that your cast spell will FAIL to complete!

The solution to point #4 is to wait until the cast time of the spell (1 second in my example) is complete or nearly complete before holding down the left mouse button to initiate your heavy/medium attacks. Without going into a lot of detail, I found that this does not have any adverse effect on DPS as long as you can adapt your timing to the new system.

Overall, as a diehard attack weaver and animation canceler, I found no major reason to be distressed by the changes. Most of the changes seem pretty positive to me. As I can continue testing, however, I reserve the right to change my mind

Hard cast Crystal Frags?

bhlegit

im sorry but none of you guys must be using a staff or a magicka character - its not the same its not good and its not still possible to cancel skills. if youre saying you like the changes you are clearly playing a stamina character or you couldnt animation cancel in the first place. On my sorcerer it is NOT possible to block cancel or even weave the light attacks properly with crushing shock. anyone playing magicka character may as well not bother to try to cancel. Please i offer for you to come to the pts and SHOW ME that it still works. It does not.

bhlegit

as far as i can see that diagram says to wait until the attack has hit to press the ability (say crushing shock) so what that means is there's actually no cancel at all and really i am basically just watching the whole animation play out. this is with a staff from range. It is different if say using dual weild and suprise attack, you can hold down the attack button and press suprise attack and it will do a heavy attack which is half cancelled into suprise attack. This change functions differently on magicka build to stamina build. LOOK INTO IT

Stigant

I just dont understand, AT ALL, why? WHY? WHYYYY?

It was officially stated that Animation Canceling is part of the game, unexpected but existing, @Wrobel said himself that its not exploit or cheat and that we should do it ... so why is it getting changed at all? I don't like it ..

I dont like this companys way to handle things, the way to inform us customers and then change their mind and out of a blue start making silly unneeded changes, like thisone or that stupid gapcloser mechanics ... instead of getting important stuff fixed .. or maybe finished ... Imperial City? anyone? when we will be finally able to capture the districts and dominate the IC as we were promissed? I guess eventually, soonTM, no ETA?
Insted we get "fixed" something that was said is fine and is staying in the game and we should use it ... I call this change another nail to this games coffin.

rfennell_ESO

Stigant wrote: »

I just dont understand, AT ALL, why? WHY? WHYYYY?

You know how the macro abusers claim it doesn't work and it is no advantage and all that?

They are lying.

Otherwise why is ZOS forced to go through with a redo of animation system?

Laranoye

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

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Stigant wrote: »

I just dont understand, AT ALL, why? WHY? WHYYYY?

You know how the macro abusers claim it doesn't work and it is no advantage and all that?

They are lying.

Otherwise why is ZOS forced to go through with a redo of animation system?

This...

And I'm not quite sure how many times this should be said.... AC should not exist fullstop.
(ok a bit extreme, It should exist but not in the way that you all want it too..)

If the is no animation there should be no damage!

Only way i can explain it is, in real life if i had a bat and swung it at someone but then stopped, it still caves their face in... Not sure how to explain it any other way...

Someone else stated also that this is a real time combat game, AC has absolutely no place.. It's an unfair advantage and only creates the combat of whoever hits first..

People are in denial if they think this ISNT an exploit.. Even Zos said as much not in so many words.. why the hell do you think they are trying to fix it?

OH YEAH coz it aint working as INTENTED...

Grow a pair, fight properly, stop being in denial and whining about exploits ( oh sorry you think its working as intended because it benefits unfair elitist pvpers lol)

You know every other game in existence works fine without AC why do you people need it so much here?.. Oh yeah! More pew pew in 1 second...

*Prepares for the Burrrrnnnnnnn*

Laranoye

double -.-

Laranoye

triple?!? -.-

Frawr

I agree that animation - cancelling should exist.

I believe that the damage of skills should be timed to land as the swing/cast animation visually lands.

If an animation is cut short, to block or dodge, then no damage should fire.

Ultimately, we should lose dps.

We should be able to physically cancel anything but the damage should not fire if cancelled before the visual animation strikes.

Simples.