Official Feedback Thread for Prioritization of Combat Animations

Tillalarrien

I apologize for the tone ^^, I am just trying to get my point across as I am disatisfied with the changes.
Here is a suggestion tough if you are hellbent on sticking with animation changes, and going against the feedback and wishes of the community as far as Ive seen:
- just set it so the 1st part of animations doesnt get cut, with animation playing to the point of 'strike' with only the 'follow through' being cut. Effecting both skills and blocking. This will anger some hardcore AC fans as it is a slight dps loss (for the duration of 'strike') but it will look nicer and allow for normal reaction time and visible skill animations from the start.

I still suport the: ROLL BACK THE CHANGE, but this would be worth testing.

silky_soft

ZOS_EdLynch wrote: »

There has been some great feedback in here. One of the abilities specifically called out was Dawnbreaker and we've made some changes to greatly improve its responsiveness. We hope to have those changes on one of the next incremental PTS patches.

I'd also like to clarify again that weaving should work the same as it always has. If you interrupt a heavy attack with an instant ability, you will still cast that ability instantly - but because that semi-charged heavy attack still happens, we briefly show a part of that attack (on average, about 250-350ms) then switch to showing that second ability already in progress. Similarly, when interrupting an instant ability with block, the actual act of blocking should happen as soon as you activate it, the only difference is that the blocking *animation* (not the block itself) will be queued for that fraction of a second until the ability reaches its impact/launch frame. That frame on the Dawnbreaker ability was determined to happen far too late, which negatively impacted the perceived response time.

If you find it to be the case that abilities are truly delayed from starting because of an animation in progress in a way that doesn't currently happen on the live megaservers, please give us detailed information about that specific rotation so that we can replicate it here and make any corrections necessary. I should also note that this visual change is systemic and should not affect any class or weapon type more or less than any other. Please report specific discrepancies so that we can investigate.

In short, you should still be able to weave as you always have, only you will not be able to completely obscure one ability in favor of another when both are successful. If you find the actual mechanics of your rotations have changed, please let us know exactly which rotation (skill, morphs, weapon-type) is behaving differently for you.

Block is qued? You mean how people are currently able to have a block mid shield charge and mid jabs?

Aunatar

Tillalarrien wrote: »

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ZOS_EdLynch wrote: »

We've been testing this internally and cannot replicate the issue with Uppercut, Wrecking Blow, Critical Charge, Focused Charge, or Streak. Can you tell us exactly how you are accomplishing that?

@ZOS_EdLynch @ZOS_BrianWheeler You are doing the same thing as with dawbreaker in previous offical reply on this thread, which is focusing on only one from many cases where this change makes the combat/game worse - the problem is fundamental, not in few skill combinations. Fixing skill combinations would be equall to threating the symptoms instead of curing the main problem.
Can you tell us that on your internal server you cant start heavy attack then use WB/Cfrags/darkflare and get starting part of the skill animation cut off? Its also right there on your visual representations of the idea..

This change of prioritisation will destroy the reactive nature of the combat as it is, and this game is based on combat. WB that I can dodge or move away from on live, will now hit sooner after the animation starts playing, limiting the short time in which I can react to it. Hardcasted cfrags will be cast too quickly after animation is visible and it will be impossible to put up a reflect or interrupt, ect. This are just 2 examples, there is plenty more where that came from! Casual players will be droping like flies againt anim cancelers and you probably dont want that?


There are also other symptoms of the main problem i wont event touch here - look previous posts.

The feedback you got here was not "I found a bugg with skill1+skill2". It was "ROLL BACK THE CHANGES" and "WORSE ALL AROUND".. So why are you still pushing for it? Plys dont say its cause you like how the light attack animation looks - its not worth destroying the REACTIVE combat over it! If you must have full animations id sooner take removal of animation canceling for good then this, even though I am all for AC.

Feedback from the ppl that play this game on this topic is as onesided as it can be.. I hope you listen, for the sake of the game.

Indeed. Roll back the changes.
NOBODY LIKES THEM.
Everyone on PTS is complaining about it

Soris

New animation cancelling + shuffle = you dont see a damn thing.

Tillalarrien

silky_soft wrote: »

Block is qued? You mean how people are currently able to have a block mid shield charge and mid jabs?

Ah yeah if we r continuing to talk about all the things wrong with it - you know what other animation gets cut for the sake of light attack swing playing out? BLOCK! knowing if enemies block is up is really important for knowing when to deplete his stamina instead of throwing uneffective CCs at him.. With this change this is also out the window..
hope you are realising what i mean when i say new prioritisation has FUNDAMENTAL problems for combat in eso.

Proove that you can listen to the community zos, plys...

Mulcibur

@Wrobel Please roll back this change before it's too late. This cannot go live like this. I understand wanting to improve animations but this change does not do so successfully. Please roll this back and take more time to tweak it. I'm sure we'd all be perfectly happy with that.

sparafucilsarwb17_ESO

I agree with everyone else - roll back this change. You are going to loose a lot of players with this.

Jowrik

@Wrobel @ZOS_EdLynch i'm the creator of the still discussed thread A desperate plea for ZOS: Please remove Animation cancelling..

I like that you adressed the issue, but this is just a half-fixed issue now making it worse than before sadly.
I'd consider taking it out of this current patch and work on it more, then implement with a later major patch.

You really really really need more time to get this right! Please consider a rollback for this.

You'll end up with more bugs than you had before it was implemented. You'd need to be fixing tons of skills if it hits Live, losing out on much needed devtime to fix something that wasn't really implemented properly anyway.

RoamingRiverElk

It is crucial to be able to see when your opponent is blocking. CRUCIAL.

Also, no, I don't want to be hit by critical rush + something combos.

sadownik

Jowrik wrote: »

@Wrobel @ZOS_EdLynch i'm the creator of the still discussed thread A desperate plea for ZOS: Please remove Animation cancelling..

I like that you adressed the issue, but this is just a half-fixed issue now making it worse than before sadly.
I'd consider taking it out of this current patch and work on it more, then implement with a later major patch.

You really really really need more time to get this right! Please consider a rollback for this.

You'll end up with more bugs than you had before it was implemented. You'd need to be fixing tons of skills if it hits Live, losing out on much needed devtime to fix something that wasn't really implemented properly anyway.

You can bet that it will go live. This is Z. dev signature move - bandaid fix on problem that breeds more problems than before.

I also dont like the animation canceling. I would like it to be gone. But.. Z. needs to decide is ac intended or not? If it is leave it, if its not then take it away completely. In each case Z. will have some people angry but with what they are doing both groups will be upset. Its simply stupid.

Frawr

Please zos, remove it.

I know that time has been spent on developing it but it simply doesn't work. It does not achieve what is intended "to make skills clearer" but does the opposite, making it harder to see what is happening.

You are not losing face by doing a U-turn.

We will be grateful for your courage to stand up and admit that something doesn't work and then remove it.

nagarjunna

Jowrik wrote: »

@Wrobel @ZOS_EdLynch i'm the creator of the still discussed thread A desperate plea for ZOS: Please remove Animation cancelling..

I like that you adressed the issue, but this is just a half-fixed issue now making it worse than before sadly.
I'd consider taking it out of this current patch and work on it more, then implement with a later major patch.

You know something is wrong when everyone says roll this back!

You really should stop!

Millerman34n

No bring old animations back, who asked for this ***?

bhlegit

Zos, I think we can now clearly see who is in the majority. This change, as iv said, will ruin the game and force a lot of people away. ROLL IT BACK

#FREEAC

eserras7b16_ESO

I'm going to get up on the train of: ROLL IT BACK.

Why? I felt much better before, a lot better. I feel clumsy I can't play my Templar properly I don't know why, the other animation felt way smoother and a lot more responsive. I really hardly push on the take it back to where it was.

EsoRecon

Honestly ZOS you need to return to the old way of how animations were. This new way scares me.

Triumviri

i vote for removing all animation cancelling, just be done with it. save time. save trouble. stop the whiners.

if you keep it in , you really need to make a tutorial on how to "weave" , you have a frigging tutorial on everything else.

NewBlacksmurf

Laranoye wrote: »

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rfennell_ESO wrote: »

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*

This!

D0ntevenL1ft

Only the people who complained about animation cancelling should be forced to use these changes. AC was fine as it was. Now it feels as if my character doesn't even respond. At least before we could have a feel with our character and now that is completely gone.

spoqster

I don't dislike AC per se. I think it is important to offer players game mechanics they can sink their teeth into (easy to learn, hard master), but I do think AC is part of the reason why ESO has such an overly vast damage gap between good and top players.

A simple example taken from an AC tutorial on youtube (https://youtube.com/watch?v=9TU43Yi5mAE, 4:10):


On the screen you see 4 dmg numbers coming from one attack: Light Attack, Skill, Weapon Proc and Bash damage are all done in the time a good player who does not use AC would have done only the Skill and Weapon Proc damage. In this case the player does more than half of the total damage with LA+Block weaving.

• 243 is the Light Attack damage
• 272 the Skill damage
• 44 the weapon enchant proc damage
• and 113 the bash damage

This is an extreme example, as Executioner does only little damage on full health targets.

A more likely example is taken from the same clip:

• 243 LA
• 769 Skill
• 113 Bash
• Weapon enchant doesn't proc

And here, with much higher Executioner damage, LA+Bash weaving still make up for 30% of the ovarall damage.

Later in this video the caster shows more examples of how he employs AC in PvP in ways that you cannot expect casual players to ever learn, but yet ESO let's the pros and casuals play together in the same "league".

I am an advocate of bringing the good and the top players closer together damage wise - for the health of the game. If 10k is good dps, then it shouldn't be possible to ever pull more than 15k. If the changes to AC help close this gap, then well done ZOS.

Lyrander

I just want to add one thing:


Please keep in mind that AC was not considered when they created the skills for this game.

Example:
-Wrecking Blow is a powerful attack with the possibility to deal a lot damage
-therefor they made it look powerful and gave WB a longer animation than some other skills due to the higher output

Animation canceling is completly ignoring the logic behind a lot of skills -see: cast time, animation time.

Yes, animation canceling is a nice add to the gameplay. If not macro'ed its a skill players are able to learn in terms to output more damage/healing.

I do it because i have to. I could live without it especially with how broken it is right now. I dont totally hate it. In some cases it makes sense. In others its just frustrating (or fun, depends on if you are the victim or the one rolling kill after kill).

I just think the way it is now, new or old system, the skill balance is broken and no longer accurate.
Why should i use another skill than WB (just an example here) if i can cast it as fast and put out way more damage?

If they want to keep AC in the game, no matter how, they need to go over all skills and adjust some of them considered that you can animation canceling it if you are skilled enough.
They need to make some skills cancelable that are not. They need to seriously think about all the ways skills are cancelable and see what you should be able to do with each skill and what not.

In my opinion they did never put enough effort in this matter. They just rolled with it and left it alone.

So not weather or not AC should be able in this game is important. Only that they finally start dealing with it and take it in account when any changes to skills are made.

I see this as a first step in the right direction (even if the new system isnt working well atm) Long way to go though...

Tillalarrien

This is a PTS feedback thread so I would prefer you all take "for or against AC" talk elswhere. Cause the change at hand will make things worse for both sides alike, and bickering here is just a noise making the developer - community communication harder.
So dont post live server stuff or compliment ZOS on the idea of change without even testing it.

You will realize that the change they want to implement is far from functional state, they need more time. If they dont roll that back and test and work on the feedback much longer - then this game will have broken, buggy and much less enjoyable combat at minimum till the Q2 comes, and they drop some other major change to fix problems they would introduce with this one.

Current changes the new system NEEDS!!
-Wind up animation of the abilities with CAST TIME, should be visible from the start! That gives ppl time to react (dodge, block, interrupt), same goes for CHANNELED abilities (for interrupting)
-BLOCK animation should be visible from the start! If opponent is blocking your approach to fighting him is much different then if he is not - We need to see if block is up or not!

So once again, zos, plys listen to the feedback of the ppl that tested this. Roll it back, work on the issues mentioned in this thread and release it in Q2 in perfect form, instead of releasing it exploitable and broken as it is now.

Frawr

I think that it should be permitted because you have to be able to block an dodge (react).

That said, if you cancel the skill before the strike animation then no damage should be logged.

Lyrander

Tillalarrien wrote: »

This is a PTS feedback thread so I would prefer you all take "for or against AC" talk elswhere. Cause the change at hand will make things worse for both sides alike, and bickering here is just a noise making the developer - community communication harder.
So dont post live server stuff or compliment ZOS on the idea of change without even testing it.

You will realize that the change they want to implement is far from functional state, they need more time. If they dont roll that back and test and work on the feedback much longer - then this game will have broken, buggy and much less enjoyable combat at minimum till the Q2 comes, and they drop some other major change to fix problems they would introduce with this one.

Current changes the new system NEEDS!!
-Wind up animation of the abilities with CAST TIME, should be visible from the start! That gives ppl time to react (dodge, block, interrupt), same goes for CHANNELED abilities (for interrupting)
-BLOCK animation should be visible from the start! If opponent is blocking this your approach to fighting him is much different then if he is not - We need to see if block is up or not!

So once again, zos, plys listen to the feedback of the ppl that tested this. Roll it back, work on the issues mentioned in this thread and release it in Q2 in perfect form, instead of releasing it exploitable and broken as it is now.

If you meant me, im sorry it did not came across the way i meant it:

Ive tested it and I dont think its working well but i am happy they finally do something.

Also: its just natural that people talk about the 'For and against of AC' in a topic about a change to this matter. Why change it if you think its fine the way it is. Why change it if you think they should completly remove it.

Those people just want to be heard - this is a first time ZOS is officially working on AC on this way.
Stay polite. Everyone here has a reason to leave their thoughts.

As for the changes that you think they should make: i can agree with you there. Especially the invi-block is annoying.

Casdha

So let me see if I understand this, and correct me if I'm wrong. Players are angry because with the old way when you block canceled it would allow you to string together damage faster but a block was never actually done unless you held it or hit it twice. Now, new way, if you hit block you actually perform a block in the same rotation and that is something you don't want to happen.

Frawr

Casdha wrote: »

So let me see if I understand this, and correct me if I'm wrong. Players are angry because with the old way when you block canceled it would allow you to string together damage faster but a block was never actually done unless you held it or hit it twice. Now, new way, if you hit block you actually perform a block in the same rotation and that is something you don't want to happen.

No,

Currently on live, you cancel the animation with a block anf the block animation fires instantly, showing all that you are blocking.

On pts, if you cancel an animation with a block then the animation continues for 300 ish milliseconds before the block animation begins, however, the actual block happens instantly.

This means that the player is actually blocking your damage before you see the block happen.

So you can no longer react based on what you see happening.

Morvul

@Tillalarrien has put it best, but just to reiterate:

in PvP, I basically don't care whether or not I can see my enemy hitting me with light/heavy attacks.
I DO CARE to see that my enemy is channeling/casting something I might want to interupt or get out of the way from.
I DO CARE to see that my enemy is blocking.

both of these I need to see as early as possible, to give me time to actually react!

Tillalarrien

Lyrander wrote: »

If you meant me, im sorry it did not came across the way i meant it:

Ive tested it and I dont think its working well but i am happy they finally do something.

Also: its just natural that people talk about the 'For and against of AC' in a topic about a change to this matter. Why change it if you think its fine the way it is. Why change it if you think they should completly remove it.

Those people just want to be heard - this is a first time ZOS is officially working on AC on this way.
Stay polite. Everyone here has a reason to leave their thoughts.

As for the changes that you think they should make: i can agree with you there. Especially the invi-block is annoying.

Didnt mean to come off that harsh, sorry. Yeah i understand your point
I am just worried that out of all feedback zos will stick to those rare ppl that actually didnt test it and are just agreeing with change cause they want AC gone (even tough this change will only make it worse). And then ZOS will say "ah well, some like it, some dont, lets put it on live!"

ToRelax

Frawr wrote: »

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Casdha wrote: »

So let me see if I understand this, and correct me if I'm wrong. Players are angry because with the old way when you block canceled it would allow you to string together damage faster but a block was never actually done unless you held it or hit it twice. Now, new way, if you hit block you actually perform a block in the same rotation and that is something you don't want to happen.

No,

Currently on live, you cancel the animation with a block anf the block animation fires instantly, showing all that you are blocking.

On pts, if you cancel an animation with a block then the animation continues for 300 ish milliseconds before the block animation begins, however, the actual block happens instantly.

This means that the player is actually blocking your damage before you see the block happen.

So you can no longer react based on what you see happening.

No!

That is what should happen from what the devs told us, but in reality you do not start blocking before that animation starts. You can block while performing another animation by block casting, but not by block cancelling.

Personofsecrets

@ZOS_EdLynch , I used warhorn immediately cancelling it's animation with a bar swap. My ultimate was used. The horn sound didn't go off and I didn't see a buff gained on my character sheet.

Bar swap cancelling is pretty important. Please look into this thank you.